People Storiestag:www.architecturenorway.no,2017:/stories/people-stories/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

An interview with Sverre Fehntag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/stories/people-stories/fehn-97/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Ingerid Helsing Almaas: The general impression abroad is that both traditional and contemporary Norwegian architecture is influenced by two things: our very close relationship with untouched nature, and our well developed skill at building in wood. Do you think there’s anything in this?

Sverre Fehn: The nature of Norway is nature untamed by cultivation. Here in Norway nature is the norm, whereas in many other places it is the cultivated land that people take for granted. In most parts of Europe almost every tree has been planted, while here, even in Oslo, you can build a villa, let’s say a villa like Villa Schreiner, on pristine land. This aspect of nature in Norway is sensational. On the other hand, I don’t think Norway has been especially innovative in this respect.

When someone wants to build a house, they first cut down all the trees, then they sow a lawn, and plant a few plum trees [laughs], and then along the foundation wall they might put a row of tulips. It’s as if you were to put a tree in a flowerpot in the middle of a wild landscape. It’s quite moving, really, there’s something fine about it [laughs]. But this form of culture isn’t particularly inspired...
In Japan, for example, nature is enhanced, they cut off a couple of branches, and train and wire them, and make the tree smaller or larger and that sort of thing, you could almost say they torture nature...

"Here in Norway nature is the norm, whereas in many other places it is the cultivated land that people take for granted."

IHA: But are Norwegians any kinder? Is this why they just plant a few plum trees?

SF: No, not at all, they’re just naive. Or perhaps our nature is so harsh that we do everything we can to make it seem romantic and pretty. But you won’t find anything especially inspired from an architectonic point of view. And then this passion for traditional log houses. All these farms and barns, they take up so much space, it’s absurd to try to develop this trend any further today. This is also a form of romanticism that we haven’t managed to do anything with – we really haven’t managed to do much at all with the log.

IHA: So do Norwegians have a thoughtless approach to nature?

SF: Yes. Yes, you could say that.

Nature as metaphor

IHA: Architects have to make a real effort to get people to understand what they do. One of the easiest arguments to use is to associate the project with nature – contact with nature is some­thing that almost everyone regards as positive, whether it’s nature in terms of a lovely view, or a closer contact with the landscape and topography. In Norway it’s easier to explain architecture with reference to nature, or by using natural metaphors, like calling the building an iceberg or a bird’s nest. Isn’t that a little too simple?

SF: Yes, but in Norway our relationship with nature is an active one, we escape into it as often as we can. You can’t make contact with God unless you’ve been skiing! Every week! [Laughs.] So there is something in it. In some projects this relationship is a fundamental principle. You follow it to its logical conclusion and build something like the Glacier Museum, for example, which is a kind of altar to nature. You can go there and worship nature and find God in nature. But this idea hasn’t been developed very far.

IHA: Does this kind of experience of nature lead to anything? Some insight?

SF: Nature is basically cruel. Human nature is also fairly ruthless, and when it breaks out it can have quite violent results. We don’t really understand very much about this aspect of nature. Our present culture is taking us further and further away from for instance perceiving the horse as an animal that pulls the plough or works as a war machine. The horse is being reduced to the level of aesthetics; it flies around a race track, and it’s so beautiful you think you’ll faint. But it’s no longer anything more. Even though the horse is a fantastic thing that has shaped a lot of our technology. So in our culture we are moving further and further away from nature, and from nature as something that we use.

Architecture also follows these trends. But this means we can become like the Japanese, who have cultivated nature in relation to the home: sliding doors, a view you can look out on, the way you step down onto the ground, the stones placed before the threshold of a door, that kind of thing. Through their religious philosophy they’ve raised the use of nature to a philosophy, which has resulted in a very particular architecture. But if you try doing something like this in Norway, as I’ve tried to do in Villa Busk and Villa Schreiner for instance, it isn’t really successful. In cases like this you work closely with nature and try to find a cultural expression that will achieve a dialogue with the trees already growing there. This is what I tried to do, but I didn’t really manage it. But after all those houses are also in Europe, part of a tradition that includes Le Corbusier and his table structures, and his very different way of doing things... It was something like this I was thinking of when I created those houses. But in Norway we haven’t done very much that reflects the relationship between nature and architecture.

"Norwegians’ worship of nature consists merely of going as fast as you can as far as you can."

IHA: Why is this? Is it because over the last two generations people in Norway have been so prosperous that it hasn’t been necessary for most people to think very hard about anything, or because before that we lived under such demanding conditions that we weren’t able to think about anything other than our basic needs? After all, Norway was one of the poorest countries in Europe before the success story of Norwegian oil began in 1970?

SF: No, we don’t have a philosophy on which to base our ideas. We have a concept of God, but that’s still rooted in Palestine and the country of the Jews, which is natural I suppose... But when we try to imagine that God is here, with us, we turn to nature to find out what constitutes the sacred and the holy... But then, Norwegians’ worship of nature consists merely of going as fast as you can as far as you can – it’s just an achievement. You climb to the top of a mountain and look at the spectacular view and so on, but this form of belief is really quite a simple one.

IHA: But nature isn’t anything in itself. When you stand on a mountaintop and look at the view and say ”Isn’t this a marvellous view?”, it’s not nature that’s marvellous, nature just is. You are the one who feels marvellous on your mountaintop.

SF: Yes, that’s right.

Norwegian cities

IHA: But what about our cities?

SF: If we do have any cities. Well, the cities are there, there are urban places in Norway, but only just. The cities are very small.

Because people live so close to each other, cities need a love of other people. You have to like shoes, your hat and coat, you must become a distinctive figure in a place. You have to love looking at another individual – the clothes they’re dressed in, what they’re carrying, what mask they’re wearing. This is what makes a city. I think this actually has to do with laziness – because people think cities are productive, but they don’t actually produce anything. The production of a city serves idleness: chairs, jewels, a beautiful dress, beds and tables are conceived and produced in cities. Everywhere in a city, even on the street, you’ll find places to sit. When a culture has developed up to a certain point, people have time, they have time to sit, and to think. This is the nature of the city, sitting and thinking and waiting – for a war, for the boat to leave, working out how to earn money.

"The production of a city serves idleness: chairs, jewels, a beautiful dress, beds and tables are conceived and produced in cities."

As soon as you’re in the countryside, you’re immediately involved in production – the hay has to be brought in, the cow has to be milked and it’s a hell of a life [laughs]. You can’t turn round without having something to do. But the city is a kind of container; the most natural thing in a city is the chemist’s, where the poisons are locked up…

IHA: Well, in the countryside they have time off as well...

SF: No, they bloody well haven’t.

IHA: ... for weaving rugs and decorating their things...

SF: No, they sneak some time in for those activities during the winter [laughs]. I remember being interested in the fishermen on the Spanish coast, that was before all the hotels were built there. I was filming the fishermen’s houses down by the water. But although their boats are drawn up on the beach, the first thing they build is a wall, and then a house behind it, and then they can’t see the sea from inside the house. It’s not until they open the door that they come in contact with production, the beauty of nature, the fish and grey skies and hard work. And then they go into their little walled-in houses, all clustered together.

IHA: Perhaps to get away from the sea ?

SF: Yes, to avoid looking at their factory. But this leads to very beautiful dwellings, very organised and well thought out... But if one perceives the city as a function of the waiting I mentioned above, the situation changes completely. In a city, thieves give rise to law courts, and morality gives rise to the church and the monastery, and this is quite different from thinking in terms of production.

Architecture and democracy

IHA: What’s it like being an architect in a democracy? Building projects are large scale operations and involve a lot of money and a lot of people. As an architect, you have to make decisions on behalf of others, and sometimes your decisions have to be altered to fit in with other considerations and interests?

SF: Yes, but in urban architecture you must always have an initial idea, a proposal. Today proposals have become so democratised that it’s no longer a real proposal. The user or the developer is actually the one to submit a proposal, but they don’t go through the government bureaucracy, they go straight to let’s say the city council, and it’s the political parties represented in the council who then make the decision... It’s no longer a question of beauty or size or anything like that, it’s a question of whether the developer has the right contacts. This leads to a city based on commerce, which is what Oslo is becoming. There’s no brake that can be applied to such a process. But you don’t actually need a brake, you need a positive proposal. If you had an architectural competition, or a City Architect or planner with a vision...

IHA: Perhaps this also has something to do with resistance, like in our discussion about nature? These forces also need some resistance to develop?

SF: Yes, you have to be able to put a brake on the process... Because the people on the city council aren’t experts, poor things! But I’ve noticed that if a client is presented with a really interesting project, they usually go along with it. But you must always be in a position to make a proposal.

IHA: Would you say that the more complex or diffuse the commission is, the more important it is to find one’s own approach? In order to present this initiating proposal?

SF: Yes, of course. And the weaker the client, the more you have to contribute, the two have to balance each other. And yet, if you provide a weak man with a solution, he’ll actually be afraid of it, because it shows up his weakness. I think people have to be very strong to cope with good architecture.

IHA: If you’re going to persuade others to adopt your proposal, you need a strong argument. But must one have the gift of persuasion in order to be an architect? In order to produce a good design?

SF: No, not at all – as Matisse once said, if you want to be a painter, cut out your tongue. But you have to be able to persuade people and so on ...

IHA: But in this case wouldn’t it be tempting to go with the design that is easiest to explain? That is the easiest to justify?

SF: Yes, but you’re anyway always trying to find the simplest solution. There are a lot of factors you have to take into account, but a simple solution often provides answers to several different questions. But you can’t just begin building, you have to reach an architectonic expression before you start. The drawing is vital. To be a good architect actually requires great humility. You have to make the most of the very small amount of knowledge you possess. Many young people today don’t have the patience. In my time we had to make maximum use of what little we had. In my case what remained was a tiny little villa – this sort of thing is mainly what I’ve been doing. And this kind of humility, or patience, is basically missing in our society today.

It’s tempting to call Snøhetta a fantastic success story. Architect Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, who trained at the Graz University of Technology in Austria, graduating in 1985, is one of the partners and original founders of the firm, which today has over 100 employees in Oslo. He talks about the firm’s ideology, organisation and working methods.

Jan Carlsen: Snøhetta has an international image from more than one point of view, and I’ll come back to this, but first I’d like to ask you: Was the basis for this global profile laid as early as 1989? When you were just a small firm, newly established in Oslo, and went to Los Angeles, rented premises and equipment, and designed your entry for the international competition for the new Alexandria Library in Egypt? Which you so sensationally won after a hard battle with architects from all over the world?

Kjetil Trædal Thorsen: We were young and confident and wanted to put ourselves to the test by entering a major international competition, so this was what you might call a flying start. Until then, we had only come second or third place in competitions and purchases in some national competitions.

We rented a flat consisting of three rooms and a kitchen in downtown LA, and there we worked and ate and slept, and we rented all our drawing equipment from the local film industry. The foundation for Snøhetta was indeed laid then, in 1989, but what really counted was our own determination and the help we received in the years after we had won the competition for this legendary library.

JC: One of the other competitors tried to steal the project from under your nose.

KTT: Yes, the Italians were certainly on the offensive; they really wanted the library, and they tried to trick their way to the commission. But thanks to the resolute initiative of several individuals, including Norway’s woman prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the project went to us. But only by a very slight margin – the project could just as well have gone to the Italians. In the end it was an elegant effort by our supporters that decided the issue.
The Opera House in Oslo was inaugurated about 20 years later. It was these two buildings – these two international victories – that placed Snøhetta on the architectural map. But you have to remember that we didn’t suddenly come into the spotlight; it took five years – from the opera competition win in 2000 – before we began attracting so much attention. And then when the Opera was finally completed, and inaugurated in April 2008, we knew we had finally arrived.

JC: In spite of your strong international image, Snøhetta has often been called a modern Norwegian firm. How do you explain this paradox?

KTT: It’s not a paradox; Norwegian contemporary architecture is very international. But having said that, the name Snøhetta has played a role, with its associations with Norway’s snow-capped mountains and the mighty Dovrefjellet. And also the firm’s address is in Oslo – we haven’t left the country – we pay our taxes in Norway and are a completely Norwegian private limited company.

Another factor that enhances our national profile could be the fact that in our projects we seek a unity between architecture and landscape. This interplay between the building and its natural surroundings has helped to shape our identity – this isn’t the case in every country.

The accessibility of architecture

JC: What about the social aspects?

KTT: The best and most popular architecture always has an element of sound social democratic ideology; buildings should be as public as possible. In my view, the ideal is a building with many different entrances and unlimited accessibility, like a park.

I’m talking here about the horizontality of architecture, about generosity, openness towards the users. Public buildings take up a lot of ground space, and so they should. The potential inherent in flat architecture has always preoccupied Snøhetta.

“The best and most popular architecture always has an element of sound social democratic ideology.”

JC: You’re thinking of how people love being able to walk on the roof of the Oslo Opera House, and the intimate relationship between the building and the water?

KTT: And the Library at Alexandria. Both these cultural buildings have public functions and we’ve given them a horizontal, inviting form. They’re inclusive.

There’s a risk that a building can act as a physical barrier, which in turn creates a mental barrier. In Snøhetta we often talk about the unity between body and mind, and this symbiosis is valid both for architecture and for the way it is perceived. One of architecture’s most vital characteristics is its sensuality.

JC: In your work, how important are the metaphors from nature that many people associate with your firm, like the parallel between the Opera House and an iceberg?

KTT: People are free to interpret us in any way they want, it’s not up to Snøhetta to decide how the completed building should be perceived. But it would be wrong to say that the design process is driven by such motives. Qualified architecture critics and other professionals should at least know better than that.

White marble doesn’t automatically express an iceberg. We could just as easily have been thinking of the smooth rocky slopes on the coast when we decided on the form of the Opera House and the way it fits in with the fjord landscape.

Wait before you put pen to paper

JC: Can you describe the most important creative working methods that Snøhetta uses in the initial conceptual design phases of a project?

KTT: As I mentioned above, we have a special focus on two parameters: Horizontality and an openness in our way of working. The work of an architect is too complex and demanding for one person alone, and that’s why we concentrate on team-building and try out different processes of cross-disciplinary cooperation.

The keyword is interaction, or ”transing”, which means transpositioning between different fields of expertise. It’s a little like an orchestra where the members exchange instruments during the rehearsals, try out new things, experiment, and then go back to their own instruments when the concert begins.

But the whole thing usually starts as group work in a workshop setting. The atmosphere is a mixture of extremely concentrated interaction and hilarious jokes; it’s important to loosen the knots that are blocking creativity. You have to be alert the whole time, incredibly focused, and make decisions at the right moment.

JC: And what do you do then?

KTT: There’s one particular method we use, and that’s before the actual designing starts: We make an in-depth analysis. Sound architectural work requires a high level of expertise. At Snøhetta we try to do a thorough job before we start on the actual design. There’s a lot of intense discussion before we draw a single line; and it takes a long time before the design – the aesthetic expression – is decided.

And during this phase it’s especially important to be alert, to catch an innovative idea on the wing, because a brilliant concept can be hidden in a casual remark or a sudden leap of association.

“A brilliant concept can be hidden in a casual remark or a sudden leap of association.”

Architects’ methods have changed a lot during the last 20 to 30 years; the work has become more professionalised. The person who produces the first drawing has a lot of influence. That’s why we deliberately keep to diagrams in the early phases.

When I was a student working with the architect Ralph Erskine in Stockholm, the situation was completely different. A lot of the design was based on intuition, spontaneous solutions; you arrived at a coherent solution by working through a series of drafts. We don’t work like that any more.

JC: After you won the competition for the 11th September pavilion on Ground Zero in 2004, I understand that the social-democratic model was quite difficult to follow in your ”Norwegian” branch office in New York, headed by your partner Craig Dykers. Is this correct? Are you an ambassador for exemplary Norwegian working conditions abroad?

KTT: Yes, it’s more difficult to run the office in a typically Snøhetta way in the US than it is here at home. For example, it’s difficult to get Americans to understand that you’re allowed to take a holiday, to work no more than nine hours a day, take maternity leave and so on. These benefits are self-evident to us Scandinavians, but the people at the New York office have a guilty conscience when they’re not at work; they’re trained to be at the drawing board around the clock.

Our argument is that an architect needs rest, fresh impulses and inspiration, in order to stay creative year after year. Such clashes between cultures can easily arise when you transfer the social-democratic model to other countries.

Reform movements and the work of an architect

JC: Snøhetta’s team consists of architects from many different countries. How does this ”brotherhood”, this cosmopolitan aspect, influence the working environment at the office and the architecture you produce?

KTT: Currently there are around 106 employees from 16 countries, and this ethnic and cultural mix expands everyone’s horizon. It makes us better at listening to one another, we pay more attention to each other in this kind of productive fusion. A lot of the dialogue is in English, and this diversity creates a lot of exciting and unexpected connections. The cross-disciplinary composition of the office has the same effect.

JC: You’ve appointed an ethics council at the office, and you consult for example Amnesty International in certain difficult cases. Can you give some examples of conflicts with professional ethics and other professional issues that can arise when you’re working on projects in other countries?

KTT: In principle, working is just as difficult and just as easy almost anywhere in the world. When we’re working in a particular country we first try to discover similarities with our own culture, so that we understand the differences better. For example, the US is neither worse nor better in this respect; our American colleagues have high professional integrity and make a great effort to create high-quality, socially responsible architecture.
But there are countries with undemocratic governments, capital punishment, discrimination against women, lack of freedom of expression, and other violations of human rights. Obviously it’s easy to get your hands dirty when you take on a project in such conditions.

But take Saudi Arabia. Even in that country there are movements to improve social conditions, voices claiming that liberal reforms are in line with Islam. Should we not support such movements? Maybe the changes are only small and gradual under the rule of the conservative Sharia elements, but still one must hope that cooperation and dialogue make a difference.

JC: So architectural activities can have a diplomatic, foreign-policy dimension?

KTT: Refusing all commissions from countries like this would undermine their positive ambitions. But we’ve had long, intense discussions about this, and if we do refuse to take on a commission we make our reasons very clear.
When we agreed to design the Alexandria Library, we were told by a lot of people that Egypt is not a democratic country, that half of its citizens are illiterate and that the costs of the building would make huge inroads in the country’s resources. But today the Library’s reading rooms are packed, and children and young people have free access to literature and cultural activities. Also this library, which also attracts tourists, has helped both the authorities and public opinion in Egypt to understand more about what can be done through good architecture.

JC: There are huge differences between the desert landscape of Saudi Arabia and the Norwegian mountains and valleys.

KTT: The Saudi Arabians are just as deeply attached to their landscape and their places as we Norwegians are to ours, and this makes it possible to exchange views and share experiences. The problem is that Saudi Arabia is a young nation that has skipped the civilising era of industrialism; the country went straight from a nomadic culture to an information society, and of course this has created an enormous generation gap. Obviously, with this kind of polarisation the ethical complications can be serious.

“We’ve said no for ethical reasons to a number of commissions.”

On the other hand, we’ve said no for ethical reasons to a number of commissions. For example, the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and the military museum in Abu Dhabi, although the reasons were different.

The challenge of China

JC: Would Snøhetta consider a commission in China to be a stimulating challenge?

KTT: If it was the right project, we would say an unconditional yes, it would be a pleasure. We’ve already received invitations from China, but the time schedules were too tight and we had to say no. They were in large cities that were expanding rapidly, and obviously in these cases a project is sometimes based on rushed decisions and unpromising conditions from an architectural point of view.

But China is a fantastic country, I’ve been there many times. So it would be a great honour for a Norwegian firm of architects to have the opportunity to design a major project in the Middle Kingdom.

JC: Do you think there are any questions I haven’t asked in this interview?

KTT: You could ask: ”What are your plans for the future?”

JC: What are your plans for the future?

KTT: We want to further develop a concept we started about 20 years ago, when we were designing the Alexandria library: Increasing the breadth of expertise of our staff and concentrating on more workshop-oriented production. I’m thinking of the possibility of combining digital and analogue processes.

The challenge for architects today is to extend their working methods from computers to physical, tactile objects, for example by modelling and prototyping.

“The risk is that if you work only with computers it results in a narrow style.”

We have to start using a lot of different tools and not get stuck in digital working methods.
The risk is that if you work only with computers it results in a narrow style because predictable design is inherent in this tool. We must be brave enough and innovative enough to examine all the creative possibilities in the repertoire of our profession.

An interview with Tod Williams and Billie Tsientag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/stories/people-stories/williamstsien-13/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Architects and artists, who deal with the physical world, are often inspired by physical things. Large things, obviously, like landscapes, or like the great masterpieces of architecture. But also by very small things, the kind of things you can put in your pocket. That you find, or buy, or maybe steal. Gifts from others, or physical notes to yourself, collected along the way.

For their exhibit in the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien sent 35 wooden boxes out into the world, to colleagues and friends, and asked them to send back a selection of things that inspired them. The resulting collection of wonderful odds and ends were assembled in a contemporary Wunderkammer, a cabinet of curiosities, in a far corner of the Biennale, in the Casa Scaffali, the “house of shelves”. Far also, it seems, from the statements and the posturing that inevitably takes place in the main Biennale exhibitions. How did the idea of this odd collection arise?

IHA: Where did the idea of this Wunderkammer come from? What were you invited to do?

Billie Tsien: As we interpreted David Chipperfield’s theme ”Common Ground”, he was talking about that which connects us as architects and that which connects us as human beings; what ties us all together. So we responded to that idea.

Tod Williams: We liked that he had asked a lot of people to come together, and we felt that we could extend this sense of community, spreading the branches of this tree a little further.

IHA: The idea of the Wunderkammer has been the object of scholarly attention as well as literary fiction for centuries. Were these more academic connotations of a collection of objects present in your minds? Or did you name your collection along the way, after the boxes started to come in?

The experience of being surrounded by another person's objects of obsession is thrilling, as you alternately identify and disavow your connection to them by whether you find the objects fascinating or boring.

In our own lives, we are surrounded by objects; that hat mould over there, or bird feathers from Peru... Things that you love. Those things have a lot of meaning to us. So we thought we would try to avoid architecture per se, and ask people – mostly architects, but there are also critics, and artists – to fill a box with things that inspired them. And we asked that they not be related to architecture.

Please, no architecture

TW: We said “Please, no architecture”. Billie and I are architects and we are partners, but we share much more than that. We share a love of life and other interests, and that was what we wanted to express and explore. So we went to our teachers, former employers, people who worked for us, friends, and asked them to participate.

BT: Peter Eisenman was Tod’s former teacher, Richard Meier was a former employer...

TW: Matthew Baird had worked for us... Karen Stein, who is a critic and writer... Murray Moss, who ran the iconic design store Moss... Ursula von Rydingsvard, a sculptor. We even asked our son, who is an industrial designer.

And we also thought it would be interesting to spread it internationally, so we asked more people: An architect friend that Billie has supported, Francis Kere from Burkina Faso... We went to Toyo Ito, who we met in Japan in 1983. We are not really close, but we have always liked him and admired his independent spirit and his sense of humanity.

IHA: There can’t have been much time to do an extensive project like this? Chipperfield launched his theme in January 2012, with the biennale opening in August?

TW: That’s another reason we selected this way of working. We went to a cabinetmaker who is a personal friend, and asked him to make the boxes – sturdy and utilitarian, nothing special, with names on them. We liked the idea of the boxes getting dents and marks from travel, acquiring a personality. But that’s where we got ourselves into trouble, because the boxes were heavier than we expected.

BT: The moment when we got the FedEx bill was very intense... And then of course some people, like Toyo Ito, filled his box with rocks, and made it even heavier!

TW: Thank God he didn’t want it back.

IHA: And Elias Torres chopped his up into bits? And of course needed another box to put the first one in?

TW: No! His box arrived as a box and then unfolded and folded itself into a small house. We were astonished when we got them back. Virtually everyone responded.

BT: And in the most generous way. I think it’s a trait of so many creative people that, for better or for worse, they throw themselves into things and generally overdo it. But the generosity of people’s contributions was very, very moving. It ranged from people really just literally filling the box with things...

TW: Glenn Murcutt and Wendy Lewin, for example, filled their box with very personal things.

IHA: Juhani Pallasmaa’s passport, his books, his knife?

BT: I asked Glenn and Wendy what those things that looked like dunce caps were. And Glenn said, “Well, somebody made them for Wendy and me to wear when we got married”. So when they got married they were each wearing these golden pointed caps...

TW: Which is also kind of a Venetian thing.

BT: As the boxes came back, it was like having your friends around you.

TW: Everyone had a little story to their choices. We had thought that we would open the boxes and take things out and distribute them, but many people had created boxes that were really set pieces. Only a few, like Glenn and Wendy or W.G. Clark and Jennifer Luce, had just packed their boxes with stuff.

But the box meant you had to restrain yourself. I was totally impressed with Thom Mayne, for example, who filled the box with, as he called it, “a piece of gold bullion”.

BT: We had said specifically “Don’t send anything architectural”, and he sent something that is so architectural it’s like all of his buildings crammed into a box.

IHA: It was like the model of all models...

TW: And Zumthor came through with his pigments. We were pretty surprised.

BT: But in the end I think it is quite a true expression of the personalities. Peter Zumthor, for example, was very much wanting to control, without seeming to control. But he was very much in control.

TW: He had an intense and clear idea.

BT: Yes. We sent him the box, and he sent it back to Venice empty. And then he had his assistant come and bring the pigments and put them on top of the box, in a very precise arrangement which looked imprecise.
So everyone in one way or another perhaps revealed themselves more than they might have if they had been asked to reveal themselves, which is nice.

"We sent Zumthor the box, and he sent it back to Venice empty. And then he had his assistant come and bring the pigments. He was very much in control."

A most lovely party

IHA: It may be a strange question, but was there a result? Of the exhibition? Did it lead to anything? We’re discussing it as a portrait of something that was – people send stuff, a piece of of what they already are...

But in the context of the Biennale, where you are always looking for the next thing, for what is going to happen, you can perceive a certain nostalgia, in a way, about the Wunderkammer?

BT: I feel like it was... the most lovely party of people who come all together and then they leave. And that’s all it’s supposed to be.

TW: I felt it in my heart. Having said that, as we did this, and as we realised it was expensive, we in a way hoped that someone else would say “Why don’t we take it, and show it somewhere else.” But that didn’t happen. And so everything went back home, and in the end what is left is a book, which will be published by Yale University Press in the fall. It’s a book full of secrets. And maybe that’s nostalgic, and maybe that’s not right, but it honours the effort.

Only two people didn’t want their boxes back. Richard Meier, we have his piece, and Toyo Ito. I wanted his as well, but it was dumped by the Italians! It’s very upsetting. I would have treasured that. But maybe it’s correct – it’s gone back to rubble and memory.

Speaking quietly to the world

IHA: The sense of community that you talked about as a starting point... That is the professional community. But how did you think about the visiting public? Obviously there are a lot of architects that visit the biennale, it’s a bit of a trade show, but did you perceive your exhibit as part of a wider context? Was it a way for architects speak to the world? Or more about how architects speak to each other?

TW: I have to admit I didn’t think about that at all. I was totally happy if it was just like a piece of Venice, that someone finds or they don’t find, and those who find it will know the secret, and those who don’t, don’t. Anyone who chooses to go that far into the bush is rewarded. Or not. That’s my take.

"I was totally happy for the exhibit just to be like a piece of Venice, that someone finds, or they don’t find."

BT: Of course people who go there have some interest in architecture. But I was hoping that it would be something that would be accessible and interesting to anyone. To children, to architects, to non-architects... That you would walk through that Venice garden and find something amazing. And it didn’t make any difference whether you had any other knowledge. It was a meeting on everybody’s common ground, because everyone could find something interesting there.

TW: Billie’s right, we wanted it to speak... That’s again why we didn’t want architecture to be part of it. Because we didn’t want the grandiosity that we sometimes see... And the other thing is, we believe that the things transcend our own architectural interests. The little Japanese kitty being the perfect example. There are toys and sweet things that children love. Elías Torres’ box shows the child in him and his partner, José Antonio Martínez Lapeña...

BT: Like the box with the balls of wool pouring out... Claudy Jongstra is a textile artist. This was much more about a quiet way of reaching people. One of the things I always feel when I go to a foreign country is that I want to read the fiction of that country. It tells me so much more than the facts. We wanted in some way to show much more about these people and their practices, than other more architecturally descriptive parts of the Biennale.

The peripheral vision of inspiration

IHA: It’s in the nature of the architectural exhibit that you never see the thing itself, you always see the picture of the thing. That’s the difference between an art exhibition and an architecture exhibition: You never come face to face with the work of architecture in an exhibition, it is always remote. And it in a way that belittles architecture, because architecture is about physical presence, and you never ever get it in that way.
But in your exhibition you actually saw the stuff, and not a picture of the stuff. Which was wonderful. And when it’s composed in the way that it was, in that space...

TW: We had asked for the most intimate space they could possibly give us. But we arrived in Venice on one of the hottest possible days ever and of course the Casa Scaffali was just a complete mess with dirt, leaves, and old cardboard boxes... We thought we might fail, you know, it could have been a complete mess. But at least we would have our own little world.

IHA: The only thing mentioned on your board, outside the exhibition, the only clue, as it were, was the word “inspiration”. You had asked people to contribute things that inspired them. What does that actually mean?

TW: People took that very differently I think. We left it absolutely open-ended. Marlon Blackwell sent a mysterious box, with an image of Johnny Cash giving the finger... It was so tough and American, and next to the image were these tiny delicate bird skulls. It seemed to speak to me about vulnerability.

But we never asked anyone to explain why they did what they did. I think some people really saw and took on the issue of inspiration, and others less so.

BT: But people, both architects and non-architects, always ask “Where do you get your ideas?”, and “what are you inspired by?”. For us, and I think for many architects we know, there are the usual things: the programme, the site, and what the client wants... But then there are also very random things. Often when our son was young we would spend a huge amount of time at the Museum of Natural History in New York. There are very many inspiring ideas there, or things you would see, that would come back into our work.

And it was that peripheral vision of inspiration I think that we were trying to get from people.

"It was that peripheral vision of inspiration I think that we were trying to get from people."

TW: As architects we are taught to be inspired by the masters, or by precedent or place, but in fact, the greatest freedom we have is from that peripheral vision that Billie describes. Going to a dance performance and dreaming for a moment – and it could be the light, or a costume – or a pebble on the beach, that kind of thing. I think Juhani Pallasmaa did that well – his books, the loaf of bread...

IHA: But those peripheral moments are somehow also the moments that are most mysterious, or where the most inexplicable things happen? And that you most often don’t explain to people, or you’re not asked to? Anyway, it’s a short step from mysterious to mystifying...

Architects also often portray themselves this way, as inspired, perhaps to retain some of that freedom that I think you identified very precisely. In our communication with others, with the general public, with clients, we reserve an area for ourselves that we call ”inspiration”, which is not questionable. We can allow perhaps colleagues in, people who accept that mode of being. Do we run the risk of alienating people who are not part of that?

TW: I understand, and I think that’s right. I have two reactions: One, I think that space, that cushion of air, or mystery, does permit us a little bit of wiggle room. The creative process is never done, and you’re always adjusting the design and the idea. So it gives you a certain amount of freedom.

Two: The one thing I feel that we are terrible at, as architects, is revealing the mess of our lives. We are always making things, and then we see the result, like in your magazine, and it is so pristine, so perfectly photographed and framed, that we don’t actually reveal that we need to live among a certain amount of warmth and mess and mystery. The kind of chaos that also cushions our lives at home.

IHA: But we are professionals, we handle million dollar projects, you don’t want warmth and mess... Or do you find that your clients also appreciate that?

TW: Well, people more and more choose us to get a little bit of that.

BT: In our own practice we are really bolstered by a kind of rigour and professionalism that essentially comes from other people in our studio. Which allows the luxury of a little more mess to happen at the top. If it happened all the way through the process of design would be terrible.

TW: But, you know, there is always mess at the bottom too, Billie. The things that even the best of us, the most professional of us, can’t get quite right. You know, the search for perfection... Accepting a certain amount of imperfection is really what we do. And you have to achieve that balance. But largely, we’re taught to be perfect, and we fail. That’s a very difficult thing for all of us.

IHA: Your buildings do not give the impression of imperfection and mess? They are very pristine, very selective things?

TW: That’s true. Because we keep asking them questions, about how they can be more what they should be; which is to be built better and to have relationships to one another, and to other objects in life. That doesn’t necessarily mean controlling, but like there is a discourse there that one could imagine.

"I think that what we learn as we mature is accepting that there are certain things you can’t control."

IHA: There is a significant distance between accepting and controlling?

BT: I think that what we learn as we mature is accepting that there are certain things you can’t control. When you are younger you think you can control everything, and you think it’s important to control everything. But then you learn that it is only realistic to control certain things, and it makes sense to accept other conditions. And that’s the balance between the things you are controlling and the things you are accepting.

Time to go

IHA: So all the pieces went back?

TW: Yes. All of them.

IHA: Like you said, it was like a party.

TW: Yes. I hope they’re happy with them, I would love to see them one day come back together. But when the party is over, it’s over. It’s time to go on.

BT: To the next party...

An interview with Kenneth Frampton and Juhani Pallasmaatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2015:/stories/people-stories/framptonpallasmaa-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Today’s global society bases its image of the future on the idea of unlimited growth. We know that this idea is not sustainable. It is not even realistic: It is pure illusion. We are suffering, as Susan Sontag puts it, from “a corruption of future-mindedness”, and we have to find new ways of thinking.1 Biologist and philosopher Yrjö Haila, one of many voices that have pointed out that the biological arithmetic behind our idea of growth simply doesn’t add up, points to our cultural limitations. “We need a profound cultural transformation”, says Haila; in order to have a chance to tackle the current challenges, we need to shift from a linear mode of thinking to a cyclical, cultivating approach to the finite systems of our planet.2 What might “cyclical thinking” mean?

Arkitektur N has interpreted Haila’s call to mean, amongst other things, engaging with the past, or letting the past engage in the future, and we asked two of today’s most prominent architectural historians and –theoreticians, Kenneth Frampton and Juhani Pallasmaa, for their reactions. How do they view the need for a “profound cultural transformation”? And what is the role of architecture in such a change? What roles do history play in today’s architectural production, in our inevitably forward-looking profession? And what is their reaction to a proposition like “The Future is Behind Us”?

Kenneth Frampton: I think it’s a very valuable thing to take on. However, when you start to formulate the question in this way, it goes beyond architecture and urbanism, as this is conventionally understood, since these fields are intimately related to the emerging crisis of capitalism. I think it’s difficult not to recognize that this unstoppable wave of development since the end of the Second World War is now beginning to fall apart, an event which will change the current political- and socio-economic condition. The obvious sign of this in the United States is the unacceptable levels of unemployment, not just for the so-called working class but also for the middle class, and most particularly for young people, both in the US and in large parts of Europe. That’s certainly one unavoidable symptom of the crisis.

IHA: Architecture is not immune to these conditions. Architecture is a very expensive activity; so most architects are, as it were, dependent on the spoils of capitalism?

KF: In general, public sector investment would seem to be very much diminished from what it was after the Second World War, along with the post-war project of the welfare state: reduced not only in terms of its share of the economy, but also in terms of the public perception of value. The last 20 years have been a period of expanding universal consumption, particularly as this has been the core of the universal middle class dream, whereby a triumphant postsocialist capitalism was supposed to deliver the goods for everybody. This ideology has occupied the world stage alone since the fall of the Soviet Union. But since that time, now over 20 years ago, the world situation is rapidly changing.

IHA: The question, then, is to identify where our cultural resistance to this predicament might be? Isn’t that why Yrjö Haila is pointing to? And isn’t there somehow a counterproposition in focussing on the place of the human being within a biological reality?

KF: Surely it is. A decisive counterproposition. But this is not the only indicator of another emergent reality. At the Millennium, Richard Rogers headed up a committee in England that produced a “white paper” entitled Towards an Urban Renaissance.3 This was an officially sponsored government report recommending the strategy for building in England over the next 20 years. At some point the text stated that: “We must recognise that 90% of what will exist in the year 2020 has already been built.” I found this projection particularly telling, because it was a reminder that even in an upwardly mobile triumphant capitalist society, the future is already compromised. So despite
our best efforts, it’s ultimately difficult to reduce building to commodity.

We try, like mad, to reduce building into a commodity, but it remains difficult. Compared to virtually every mobile object you can set your eyes on, building has this anchored quality; it’s not a commodity item in the same sense. Building is tied to land and to property, and this in itself resists commodification.

Juhani Pallasmaa: I agree with Ken that the problems today are far beyond architecture, and in many ways the problems in architecture are reflections of other things in the capitalist society. It’s becoming increasingly clear that in many ways we are reaching the end of the road, and that the idea of perpetual growth is a suicidal ideology throughout the world. It has been questioned before, but it has since become an accepted ideology.

And adding the forceful process of globalisation to that, it has become an unbearable ideology. Particularly if you think of any kind of idea or requirement of global human equality.

"In many ways the problems in architecture are reflections of other things in the capitalist society. It’s becoming increasingly clear that in many ways we are reaching the end of the road, and that the idea of perpetual growth is a suicidal ideology."

And one of the consequences of making architecture a commodity is even more serious: architecture is one of the most powerful means of giving us our sense of identity, home and belonging, but architecture defined and produced as a commodity cannot do that any more. So architecture is giving up its most fundamental task. From the very beginning, architecture was not just a question of shelter, physical shelter, it had a mental motivation. And that has now at large been given up.

So I would say that we don’t even need to speak about stylistic issues or aesthetically different architectural approaches – just simply, architecture as a human endeavour is in opposition to the prevailing ideas of industry, economy, and commerce. Which means that any profound, sincere work of architecture is a force of resistance. It’s bound to be a cultural resistance. Because we have abandoned architecture as a means of organising society and re-distributing the benefits of wealth, in the sense of creating dignified settings for collective life. Even in times when architecture was used for displays of power, it created environments that had a dignifying message at large.

KF: I think that even in its most imperial moments, architecture was always capable of representing the collective to some degree. While there were many, at times, who were not direct beneficiaries of the state, it was always possible for the architecture to embody and represent the nation-state.
However, once architecture becomes nothing but an aesthetically spectacular commodity, then any idea of a collective identity is immediately vitiated.

JP: And architecture has always materialised time, the course of time, and made history visible and readable. But today’s instant architecture of investment, made for the exploitation of the economic system, cannot possibly do it.

KF: Of course. It can’t, because it is completely disinterested in doing so. As such it is invariably implicated in the maximisation of capitalist profit; it cannot possibly address this issue.

"Today’s instant architecture of investment, made for the exploitation of the economic system, cannot possibly materialise time."

An architecture of resistance

IHA: It’s interesting that you say architecture of any kind of quality, or any kind of sincerity, is inherently culturally resistant. And I mean resistant in a kind of medical sense, of having resistance to disease, as opposed to a protest. Because that means that the many architects who feel powerless to achieve any aims they might have to do good, don’t necessarily need to feel so bad…

Many architects have great intentions for wanting to make a positive contribution to society, but somehow they never get into the political or economic position to do so, and resign to powerlessness. I see a kind of tragic aspect to architectural practice today, in the way that architects describe the gap between what they want and what they are able to do.

KF: However, this tragic double bind doesn’t just apply to the architectural profession. Consider the degree to which multinational corporations now have an ever-increasing hold over the sovereignty of the nation state, and over political representation within that state.

KF: It is becoming increasingly clear that what we have hitherto conceived of as democracy is currently being threatened by this entire system. So this frustration is not limited to architects… I think what we wish to be able to do is to give the next generation some guarantee of the continuation of our way of life, of an identity, and of the continuation of the species. In this context, the trauma of Hiroshima and Auschwitz are ominous reminders that techno-scientific progress is no longer a guarantee of progress as such. They remain the primary warning signs, so to speak. And although we have experienced prosperity over the years since those events, the negative aspects of “high technology” have become increasingly evident.

"Hiroshima and Auschwitz are ominous reminders that techno-scientific progress is no longer a guarantee of progress as such."

JP: Another sign is the increase of selfishness, in the political and economic world. This is a clear change during the last two or three decades. It’s frightening how selfishness dominates policymaking and economic life… Notice also the disappearance of visions. In the 1960’s there were still plenty of visions about a better life and how those might be materialized. Now, nobody comes up with any visions. Everything is mere pragmatism and opportunism.

IHA: Is this also to do with the balance between individualism and collective consciousness? Is the commodification of the economical and technical aspects of society a result of the individualisation of culture, or the cause of it?

KF: I think our emphasis on individualisation is a paradoxical condition. We are forever in the habit of emphasising individual satisfaction, with regard to standards of living, private consumption etc. etc. But for me this individualism is already an illusion.

In the meantime, the one fact which is perennially shocking is the rate at which the infrastructure of the United States, is deteriorating; particularly the road system, but also hydroelectric facilities, railroads, such as there are, even airports – they are in a state of decay. And there is a real resistance to appropriating money to maintain this infrastructure.

JP: At the same time, nations, just like individuals, live over their budgets, far beyond their means. This is yet another indication of the weakening of our reality sense. We do not live in the present tense anymore; we live in a future tense, however, without any visions of the future.

KF: And the United States is still fighting a bogus war, which after a decade is also the longest war in US history, during which the country has spent 400 billion dollars in an effort to overcome the trauma of 9/11. Hence the term ”war on terror”, which by any standards is a very peculiar idea. In the last analysis, you have a powerful country, which in terms of civic discourse doesn’t know what to do with itself.

The attitude of the multinational global corporations, even towards the country from which they originate, is totally indifferent. Everything is calculated in terms of global economic advantage, and if that means abandoning the United States, they will do it! For in the end they have no other concern than the maximisation of profit. It is maybe not so categorically the case in Europe, but it’s only too evident here.

JP: A reflection of the same development, as you certainly know, can be seen in the Nordic countries. The Nordic Welfare State, based on advanced democracy, was arguably the highest achievement of western political culture and social development. However, in many ways this idea has been abandoned. The scope of healthcare is being reduced, we still have free education, but the ideology of a Welfare State, based on ideas of equality, is obviously in danger.

IHA: In Norway, for example, we have had the money to keep the systems in place. But I would agree with you that we can see an ideology dissolving.

JP: I think even this dissolution is a consequence of the erosive power of world capitalism. It’s simply such a huge force that there has been no real resistance, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

IHA: So would you go along with our proposition that an injection of history is one of the possible antidotes to such a development?

KF: Environmental cultural history is of the greatest importance because the past feeds the present. This is the position set forth in Edward Hallett Carr’s little book What Is History?, where he makes the argument that each age writes its own history. There is no absolute history, for our notion of history is constantly changing due to the experience of the subject during the moment it is being written. In that sense, history is almost always unavoidably a function of the present.

In my view, the role of the universities, irrespective of whether they are humanist or techno-scientific, is to educate the political subject; that is to educate the citizen, as much as they educate the specialist. And I think history plays an important part in that as well.

"The role of the universities, irrespective of whether they are humanist or techno-scientific, is to educate the political subject; that is to educate the citizen."

JP: Yes. Not perhaps necessarily history as an academic subject, but as T. S. Elliot speaks of it, the sense of history, “historical sense”. And that is something that is being lost. The understanding of culture and the human being as historical processes. And here I would also emphasise the importance of biological historicity, which has been so far completely disregarded. In my view, this is a very important thing to understand, and this is exactly what recent neurological studies are beginning to reveal – the role of biology in the history, nature and culture of human beings.

KF: Well I agree, but you are much more aware of this than myself.

The authority of history

IHA: Would you say that history has some sort of authority in how we understand the world? It has certainly had an authoritative role, also in architecture, at various points in time, in the sense that the priorities and solutions of the past were regarded as relevant references for practice, like the role Classicism played in the Renaissance. But does it have any authority today?

KF: I think the issue of tradition, understood in a very subtle and broad way, as something that is to be revealed in the present, is of crucial importance. For a work of architecture to be resistant, in the sense that you and Juhani are evoking, the understanding of tradition is essential in order to produce a work that has sufficient levels of culture embodied into its form. This kind of synthesis has a quintessentially resistant character.

IHA: How would you define tradition, then? Because architectural tradition, arguably, has also been dissolved, to the point that it has to be reconfigured by each individual practitioner...

KF: One of the strange things about architecture is that it always remains in some way anachronistic. It is inherently contrary to the division of labour, as it is commonly understood, even if the profession is already divided from building in se. At the same time, unlike many other fields, architects have to face reality holistically. When an architect works on a project, any project, they look reality directly in the face, since there are always very real material conditions and limitations... Many other professions only deal with a fragment or a part of the real.

JP: I have often used the word ”impure” to describe the architects’ reality, in the sense that it brings together categories that don’t fit together. Yet that’s what we need to deal with. Architecture must be logistically and philosophically one of the most complex and contradictory human endeavours.

"I have often used the word ”impure” to describe the architects’ reality, in the sense that it brings together categories that don’t fit together." Juhani Pallasmaa

KF: That reminds me of Alvaro Siza’s great aphorism when he says “architects don’t invent anything, the transform reality.” In other words, he has to transform noncorresponding synthetic demands. And that contradiction is already out there, in the realisation of something. Therefore the making of architecture cannot be purely a logical operation.

I think that history, in the sense of tradition, is the one essential catalyst by which these contradictory conditions can be culturally and significantly resolved.

IHA: I sense that you’re not talking about tradition as a material or constructive continuity?

JP: I would say that tradition means understanding that the acts of construction take place in a cultural continuum. And in this there is a respect, there is an echo and reverberation, and there is a responsibility. Backwards and forwards.

KF: Very nicely put.

IHA: And would you say that the building industry, or industrialised building, is part of that continuum?

JP: Yes.

KF: Yes.

JP: Of course. I think it would be completely wrong to disregard or devalue the processes of industrialisation as such. The question is how these processes are used, and for what purposes.

Intention and nostalgia

IHA: There has been a discussion about the glorification of handicraft, about the longing some architects seem to have for essentially pre-industrial forms of craftsmanship in building...

KF: There is always this risk that certain materials or processes become fetishized, and so run the risk of being regressive. Also socially regressive. But the term ‘rationalised production’ is promising to me: opens the way for a more productive mixture of techniques. And it brings us back to the synthetic potential of architecture, and the possibility of hybrids.

JP: I would not argue for the inclusion of craft only as a practical application, but for craft as a process of thought, and the presence of the hand. I feel that Renzo Piano’s buildings, for instance, are very optimistic in the sense that they don’t compromise industrial processes, yet they have a feel of the hand, as if one could touch the hand of the author, or the maker.

I would say it comes down to human intentionality. And care, and the heart and compassion that goes into it, and I don’t think there is any reason to romanticise craft and natural materials.

IHA: You used the word romanticising... We are running alongside another word here, which is nostalgia. This is obviously something that we very quickly come to face in our efforts to look at history.

KF: I have often said to students that when we open up the ground, to put a building into it, what the human subject deals with is as primitive as it ever was. We are engaging in the same activity as in Roman times, or in mediaeval times. The same kind of very awkward confrontation occurs between the animal and the earth. When the building rises up out of the ground, the conditions have changed, but that initial moment is still very primitive. And I think this is important because it points to the possibility of combining techniques and materials that retain that characteristic contradiction, that are not at the same homogenising level.

JP: The word ”nostalgia” has also been used as an accusation, for instance to me, that I am nostalgic. I don’t think I’m nostalgic, I’m just trying to learn about the past and the crafts and respect them. And I think that’s different from being nostalgic.

Clearly speaking, it is a problem, and it is primarily a mental problem, that we are losing our sense of history. That is why the preservation of old buildings, for example, is becoming so important.

KF: In some ways, preservation is the bad conscience of late capitalism.

“Pallasmaa: It is a problem, and it is primarily a mental problem, that we are losing our sense of history. That is why the preservation of old buildings, for example, is becoming so important.
Frampton: In some ways, preservation is the bad conscience of late capitalism.”

IHA: You are probably aware of the tragic events that occurred in Norway this summer, the bombing of the government building and the killings at the youth camp at Utøya.

The problem the Norwegian government and the public are facing now, is what to do with the damaged government building. This obviously touches on the sense of loss, not just for the individuals, but a whole society’s sense of loss.

The current public debate of this question is caught between the opposite extremes of complete restoration and total demolition. But the real question seems to me to be how one deals with memory: whether one sets apart separate sites where one goes to remember, or whether the memories are part of a continuum, an ongoing discussion and practice of alternatives and differences. And maybe the present stalemate of two extremes is indicative of the very limited, and limiting, way that we think about history in today’s society.

JP: I think the problem comes back to where Kenneth started from – as construction has become almost entirely mere investment, the investors couldn’t care less about ideas of history or cultural continuum. They care about the bottom line. And that is why the architect is often the only professional who still tries to defend cultural values in building projects.

I have noticed it in projects that I have been engaged in Helsinki, a city that ought to be a bit more sensitive to these issues. All the democratic representatives talk about is window cleaning, that is, about the most practical of issues. Not any of the deep mental or symbolic aspects of architecture. It is as if architecture had lost its mental meaning altogether and turned into mere utility. But the task of architecture is also to provide us our existential foothold in the world.

The end of growth

IHA: Do you think the challenges facing us now, at the end of capitalism are comparable to other moments in history? Or are we in a unique situation?

KF: Well, we talk about the current situation as a recession. It seems that it is not of the magnitude of the 1929 crash, for example, but there are undoubtedly very high levels of uncertainty.

JP: And the fact that we have had two recessions in ten years or less shows that our system is becoming increasingly fragile and unstable. What is happening currently in the EU reveals the fundamental problems of our prevailing thinking about production and economy. We are coming to the end of a road. The ideology of perpetual growth is now beginning to show its fundamental impossibility.

KF: One aspect of this is that the transatlantic European power centre, which was previously in a position to exploit other parts of the world, is rapidly waning in influence. There are real losers in this development – Africa is very poor and has been terribly exploited – but it is very clear that China and India, for example, are turning into real powers of production. And something is happening from the point of view of capitalist consumption and production. The idea of secure markets, that can be exploited over long periods of time, is no longer quite as self-evident.

So apart from the fact that the natural environment can’t withstand all our mindless consumption of resources, the economic system is beginning to choke itself. It is not very easy to see how we will react to this changed situation.
The importance of small resistant work, all over the world, is one of the things that point in another direction. I think mainstream architecture is currently in a holding operation, while the most interesting developments are visible in the smaller efforts.

IHA: It’s interesting that you should say small, because scale is obviously a function of finance. The pockets of culturally resistant work as you mentioned often found in the smaller projects. Not that it wouldn’t be possible to achieve that resistance in larger scale projects as well, but at the moment, both publically and privately funded larger projects have primarily been focused on construction as commodity, on building as investment. There are exceptions, but often in projects that have been intelligently managed to yield both cultural and economic value.

KF: It relates to what Juhani said about investment. In as much as the big investment, internationally, is often private, it’s hard to find the space for more sensitive work in that area. Which of course suggests that at the moment there is more hope in the combined public/private projects than there is in investment that is exclusively private.

"Art and architecture are marginalised and made part of the same system of consumption as everything else, but, I believe, the potential for resistance and liberation is still there."

JP: We are talking about rather sad aspects of our image of the future, but I believe that you share with me an optimism about the potential of arts and architecture to elevate human life again, given a chance. I think the task of architecture and art has never been as important as it is now. It is marginalised and made part of the same system of consumption as everything else, but, I believe, the potential for resistance and liberation is still there.

”Future-mindedness is as much the distinctive mental habit, and intellectual corruption, of this century as the history-mindedness that, as Nietzsche pointed out, transformed thinking in the nineteenth century.” Susan Sontag: ”AIDS and Its Metaphors” (1988), in Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, Picador 2001, p. 177.&#160;&#8617;

See Byggekunst no. 5-2000 for a summary of the main points of the report.&#160;&#8617;

An interview with Craig Dykers, Snøhettatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/people-stories/dykers-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Ten years have passed since the Twin Towers fell, and eight years have passed since the architectural competition for the memorial park, which drew over 5000 entries from all over the world. New York architect Michael Arad, with landscape architects Peter Walker, won the competition with their project “Reflecting Absence” and have designed the park, while Snøhetta in 2004 were commissioned to design the pavilion leading down to the underground Memorial Museum. The pavilion will house an auditorium, a quiet place for reflection and a room set aside for the victims’ families. The museum, designed by the New York firm Aedas, stretches down to the foundations of the towers, and will tell the story and the events that happened on the site. Encircling the park will be a fringe of projects designed by some of the biggest names in architecture, following Daniel Libeskind’s master plan. The pavilion is the only building above ground on the Ground Zero site itself, and it will open, with the museum, in September 2012.

In addition to international attention, the commission gave Snøhetta the opportunity to establish an office in New York. After almost seven years, and as many changes to the pavilion design, the portfolio of the New York office has expanded. Snøhetta currently has buildings under construction both in Ohio and in North Carolina, and several others on the drawing board. But following the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the focus inevitable returns to Manhattan. The pavilion is more than a building: it is part of the public healing of a national trauma; the discussions are loaded and opinions abound. What has this project meant for Snøhetta?

Ingerid Helsing Almaas: You were firmly established in Norway at the time this project came up. What was your interest in the former World Trade Centre site?

Craig Dykers: We had no interest in it. I had a sense that New Yorkers needed to solve this problem themselves, and coming in to this situation from the outside, one almost felt like an ambulance chaser. But then it kept coming up, and I started to think that, as an American, maybe I need to do something. The idea of building a cultural centre or museum on that site does represent a degree of courage. So at the last minute, we registered.

The competition process included two rounds of interview presentations, and though the first submission was done pretty much on the spur of the moment, the second round was well prepared, and after the interview we had a very good feeling. We walked out of the room and it felt like a home run, it was so perfect. We went down to have coffee and said to each other: We kicked some ass, we will win this. It was the perfect presentation. And we got it.

When they called us up, the committee chairman’s words to me on the phone were: “We love your work, it’s very sensitive, but in this place this building must be invisible”. So that was our task, an invisible building. After many meetings we began to understand what he really meant, which was that they didn’t really want a building that overwhelmed or overshadowed the memorial, they wanted something that was complimentary, that was comfortable, that didn’t immediately push into the foreground of your thinking. And that ’s partly why we won, because a lot of our work is about buildings that create direct connections to situations or landscape features, not only on the site itself but also in a larger context. That’s what he meant by invisible.

The sky above Manhattan

As the building, and the museum it leads down to, have yet to open to the public, the facade tends to dominate people’s reactions. The facade of the pavilion is an irregular composition of stainless steel panels, with a varied surface treatment of striped patterns.

IHA: At first glance, the pavilion seems to have a kind of puzzling neutrality to it, which is somehow uncharacteristic of your work?

CD: I think the building changes continuously. That‘s one of the things I like about it – it has a kind of camouflage quality, but at the same time when you look at it closely, it is very much there. When you see it in photographs taken from above it seems very large. But seen from ground level sometimes you don’t notice it at all. The closer you get to it, the more apparent it becomes – so as you move right up to it suddenly the shapes and the reflections have a tremendous impact, and people suddenly turn their bodies and their heads up, to see the sky. The threshold between the building and the sky brings the sky to you, literally, brings it right to you. Which is a rare occurrence in New York. Most buildings here are tall, and the sky is very far away, New York has a very distant sky, but here, there is a very near sky.

IHA: This is obviously because of the detailing of the steel panel facade?

CD: The building has five different panel types. It can be hard to see, but they are very subtly designed with different expressions, some are solid, without any pattern at all.

The striping clearly carries a reminiscence of the striped facades of the original towers. But this had to be subtle: Many people want that memory, and many people don’t, so the only choice we had was to make something that implied the connection, but would only be intermittently visible, or at least questionable from various perspectives. On the site, many people ask if the intention is there, to re-create the original facade, but they are always questioning themselves whether it is or isn’t there. They cannot see it clearly, but sense the connection. So the creation of doubt in the experience is an attribute that is engaging in the design.

"The creation of doubt in the experience
is an attribute that is engaging in the design."

IHA: This is obviously an important aspect of the project, and the detailing of the facade was changed many times, from a quite sophisticated solution with glass prisms to today’s steel panels. Do you feel you’ve compromised along the way?

CD: No. We wanted to create a kinetic surface, that reacted directly to the atmosphere surrounding it, to the sun conditions throughout the year – to the greyer, less sunny days that you have here in New York, to the green leaves of the trees in the spring, to the browner tones in the winter – so that as you move around the building you are constantly seeing the light shift. And that’s still there. The final design still uses prisms to achieve that, it’s just that they are microscopic; the light refraction is in the sandblasting and scratches on the surface of the stainless steel.

IHA: The shape of the building adds to this effect...

CD: Yes. Actually, most people find it hard to describe the shape. But the reason the building’s form is so complex has to do with the intensity of the coordination going on between us and all during the planning, and the inherent complications below grade. We stopped trying to idealize the design and instead allowed the complex conditions to become a partner in the process. And this is controversial, because it sounds like a position of weakness – but we actually found it to be a position of strength to be able to slowly mould the building to all the things going on in the ground. We weren’t going to let it go wherever it wanted, we formed it, but we didn’t want to fight against the complexity anymore. So the shape is a direct response to all those unusual conditions below the ground. And I think that’s an interesting story, because the building is a physical representation of the actual process, and not a perfect or fictitious “thing”.

A changing symbolism

Memorials are loaded places. New York is a heterogeneous place, and part of the on-going construction of an American self-image is an active debate around the public symbolism of places such as this. Many new monuments have little more to offer than an one-dimensional symbolism, but miraculously, such obvious gestures have been avoided at Ground Zero.

IHA: I am sure there were people who were expecting some very readable symbolic gestures.

CD: Yes. So we had to find a route that would allow various people to see the building in different ways.
Many of the critics so far have been very negative about the fact that the building has set up a relationship to the past, however subtle, as well as it being “in the way” of the needs of the memorial. New Yorkers were so deeply affected by the events of 9/11, that they are going to be very sensitive, and most of the critics thus far are New Yorkers, who were here on that day. So I don’t think the building will ever live down that challenge with them. It will always be kind of fluctuating between things, just like it was also meant to fluctuate between the past and the future. That was the idea. Our building is about the present. It is not about memorialising the event, nor is it about “crystalballing” the future, trying to suggest that “commerce will rise again”. It is just about being here, at this moment in time, today, reflecting the present. And of course the present is the most ephemeral time we have. The past and future are a block, one long span, but the present lasts for some infinitesimally small moment, and then it’s gone.

And all these considerations and qualities mean that the project will always be wavering between different groups of people, with different interests. And the reception of something like that needs time. So after all these anniversary events have passed, let’s not talk about it for a while. Let‘s let some time pass, especially New Yorkers, who need to digest this place. The construction isn’t finished yet, the site still hasn’t matured. It’s going to be very dense, a lot of trees have been planted, oak trees that take a long time to grow, within an exceptionally open space in Lower Manhattan. We need time to really see what was made. This was the mistake when the project began; everyone wanted to do and see everything fast. That’s a kind of New York thing. But this is not the kind of thing you can do fast. Things need time. And people will likely react differently in the years to come.

"This was the mistake when the project began; everyone wanted to do and see everything fast."

The development of the programme

When Snøhetta first got the commission in 2004, the project was a lot bigger than what it is today. The budget was 320 million dollars, and the programme included the Drawing Center, an art institution focussing on the artistic reactions to the tragedy, and the International Freedom Center, a new museum which would focus on international issues of liberty and human rights. Both institutions were quickly drawn into the political discussions of what the memorial should be. The main objections were that a general focus on human rights might seem disrespectful to the individuals who lost their lives on September 11th and their families, as would public debates or film festivals – this was hallowed ground. In 2005 local politicians finally closed the doors to the Drawing Center and the IFC.
Suddenly, there was no project, and more importantly, no budget. Snøhetta had manned their New York office with people both from Norway and the US, poised to design. New ideas came up, and the underground Memorial Museum was still going ahead, even if at that point it was to have a separate entrance on the west side of the site.

CD: The idea of making our building the entrance to the underground museum was the basis for a presentation I finally gave to the governor of New York, as a result of which he gave 80 million dollars to the project out of his discretionary fund. Making that happen was one of the high points in my career. And it saved the project.

IHA: New York is a big place, and its processes and politics seem overwhelmingly complex, at least viewed from Norway. Did you bring something with you from Norway to that situation, so to speak?

CD: Well, in general we were more confident as a practice. We had gone through the process of the Alexandria Library, and we were completing the Oslo Opera, two very substantial projects. We were less frazzled by crazy things happening around us. And we were more patient.

But is there some specifically Norwegian experience that we brought with us? Certainly, Norway has generally a calmer lifestyle, and our office in New York is established with a similar atmosphere to the atmosphere we have established in Oslo. I guess you can say that what we tried to bring with us is a sense of balance to everything, that we can also find in Norway.

We have a general sense of equality in the office, a gender consciousness, and we try to balance personal and work time... But there are places in Norway that don’t have any of that, so whether or not it’s a pure Norwegian thing I couldn’t say. Interestingly, Elaine and I are the most Norwegian people in the New York office, in the sense that we are the ones who lived the longest in Oslo, but we are both American. Simon is “Norwegian” in that sense as well, except of course he’s British. We have a token Dane, and for a while we had Zenul here from the Oslo office, alongside other Norwegians, but he is from Malawi...

From Oslo to New York – and from September 11th to July 22nd

Snøhetta is generally associated with Norway as it brands itself as a modern, forward-looking nation. But what does that association actually mean?

IHA: I have the impression that there is still a strong connection, between Snøhetta in Oslo and Snøhetta in New York, a connection that you seem to emphasise when you present your work?

CD: It’s a big question for us now. And as our offices change we have to hold on to that connection, or it will just naturally slip away. We need to protect our diversity and our connections. This can be difficult, especially when considering international media pressures alongside some domestic pressures in Norway where Snøhetta’s diversity is sometimes misunderstood or its identity is overtly nationalized.

IHA: Do you think that connection, real or not, gives you an advantage in an American context? That people in the US associate certain qualities with you, or something that they aspire to, which they wouldn’t otherwise get?

CD: Although our work is often challenging, people feel less threatened by us, probably because Norway has a sort of non-threatening quality associated with it. People still look at Norway the way Norwegians look at themselves, as calm and consensus driven, and we are able to benefit from that stereotype. Also Norway often works with peace and consolidation challenges and social issues that are on the liberal side, that others find valuable to look at, even if they don’t agree. And we are able to bring that with us, yes. I can also say that it is these value trademarks that made the events that occurred in Oslo this last July so much more shocking to people around the world.

"People still look at Norway the way Norwegians look at themselves, as calm and consensus driven."

Broadly speaking, I appreciate all that Norway has to offer, and what it has offered us, but at the same time I am increasingly uncomfortable with what I sense is a growing xenophobia, all over the world, including in Norway. Nobody directly addresses this compromise of diversity, even after the events in Norway this summer, even after a commitment toward openness. It is easier to focus on the perpetrator or the victims than on the issue. There is no doubt the perpetrator is evil and the victims should be respected.

It was exactly the same in the US after 9/11: it was difficult inside the US to confront the fact that there were issues out there that were creating confrontation in the world that the US was responsible for or that Americans themselves might be creating. And, as with the Oklahoma bombing some years before 9/11, it can be even more alarming that the source of confrontation often comes from within the recognized cultural framework rather than outside it. These are the same challenges Norway has faced since the July terrorist acts. President Bush tried to address this after 9/11, urging people not to vent their feelings on innocent people who happened to be Muslim, but he was not clear enough and his actions did not clearly follow his words, so that voice drowned in general cries for vengeance. In Norway the prime minister was very clear. And the Norwegian government gets points for that. But still, the same fear of “the other” exists, even in Norway, although perhaps more subtle in appearance. This is an uncomfortable subject for anyone to consider.

Bigger than America

IHA: At this point, after 10 years, in what way is 9/11 bigger than America?

CD: 9/11 certainly was, and should have remained, bigger than America. But sadly it became smaller over time. There were so many interests in the US trying to push it into a purely sectarian discussion, “us against them”. But as the world has changed in these 10 years, and as events have occurred elsewhere, for example in Norway this past July, people are recognising that this wasn’t limited to the personalities involved in that one event at Ground Zero. At the time, everybody started to blame hegemony on the Americans. But we’re seeing now that this can happen in other parts of the world, it’s not limited to the US. That’s not to dispute the issues that exist here in the US, or to suggest that Americans are not facing huge challenges – while it remains to be the wealthiest financial market in the world – but still, people are now seeing that these things are not tied to certain groups of people.

IHA: Can sectarian issues or the challenges of a multi-cultural society be more easily confronted in New York, because it is such an ethnically varied place?

CD: Actually, that could be the case, but – and there’s a big but – there are aspects to New York City that people don’t recognise, and that are very controversial to bring up.

For example, many of the first responders at the September 11th site, the largest majority of them, were Irish descendants, and Irish Catholics. Historically, firemen and policemen have been from this group of people. Having just come back from Ireland a few days ago I have been reminded that there is a notion to Catholicism that is quite unique there, but also in general Catholicism as a religion is very oriented toward the sacred. It has a hierarchy of sacred issues that dominate the religion. I’m not saying anything negative about that, but what it does mean is that it forms people’s connection to a place like Ground Zero. Very quickly this became a “sacred place”. That’s terminology that comes straight from Catholicism. Very quickly it became “sacred ground”, in a way perhaps even close to the Native American sense of sacred ground. The place certainly has tremendous value, but the sacral nature is more aligned with a religious context.

So then it became this thing that you couldn’t touch, that was hard to talk about, that you couldn’t infringe upon. And that, I think, has made it more difficult in New York. And that’s a very rarely discussed aspect, but it is a part of life here, regardless of your religious persuasion.

It’s very easy to talk about openness and diversity, so long as everybody around you is the same as yourself. We had that challenge here in New York, with the “Ground Zero Mosque”, which was actually never a mosque; it was a cultural centre with a prayer room in it.

"It’s very easy to talk about openness and diversity, so long as everybody around you is the same as yourself."

They were clearly on a different route than the minority fundamentalist Muslims who were creating blatantly anti-diversity cultural centres; they were all about bringing people together. With this Islamic cultural centre, we suddenly had the situation where there was a lot of talk about openness, but when the one institution that came out with a very direct commitment – it was knocked dead in the water, by the public at large. So it’s harder to act than it is to speak. And that’s a lesson that anybody can learn from. And that’s a challenge that Norway in particular faces at this point in time.

Stasis or change

IHA: This is connected with the architectural discussion: do you want to preserve, or will you accept or even embrace change? Architecture is in a way static, it gets its flexibility or its dynamic from how people think about it and how move through it and use it over time. But the Ground Zero memorial park, and certainly in contrast to your pavilion, presents a very static image.

CD: The Memorial is meant to be frozen at some level, the Pavilion is less so.

IHA: So there seems to be these two opposite instincts, between stasis, and commemoration as a freezing point, and a dynamic healing process. How the architecture enables that is interesting. It seems clear, even in the early renderings, that the memorial park and your building pull in two opposite directions.

CD: I agree with that. And our project really was meant to change your perception of time, whereas the memorial is meant to capture your perception of time.

IHA: So even the waterfall in the memorial is used in a very one-dimensional way. It is there as one moving thing…

CD: Water is material.

IHA: Yes, it’s a materialisation of the passing of time, but it doesn’t do anything, doesn’t change anything on the site. You could say that the most healing aspect of that site are the trees that grow. That will actually change it a lot in, a 10-15 year perspective.

CD: We could have been more interactive with time in our building – our choice of stainless steel, for example, is generally moving in the opposite direction. Stainless steel is one of those things that wants to ignore time. So I think your point is a good one.

The reason we chose stainless steel was, as I mentioned earlier, that by treating the surface of it in a particular way, you capture light in a very ephemeral manner. Light, even just small amounts of light, even ambient light, with a cloudy sky, creates change in the facade. Sometimes some of the folds of the facade just ignite. At other times there are softer moving expressions. But every time you see the building you see something new. So that’s where the dynamic notion comes in. We always wanted it to be – our word was kinetic. It’s the same thing as dynamic. Almost. But there needs to be stability too, we need both worlds. We need all those things in between, that connect chaos and order.

IHA: And particularly in the city. And particularly in a city like New York.

CD: Yes.

The landscape of the city

The mountain in Snøhetta’s logo, and even the letter ‘ø’ in the company’s name, the focus on landscape which is always stressed in the journalists’ choice of metaphors as they describe Snøhetta’s projects – from the “glacier” of the Oslo Opera to the “sun disc” of the Alexandria Library – are all associations that encourage a perception of the work of the practice as a kind of force of nature, something that, at least in a Norwegian context, often gives architecture and design instant legitimacy. But are these landscape metaphors as generously heaped on Snøhetta’s urban projects?

IHA: You talked about the landscape, about the sky, in lower Manhattan, which to many people would be the epitome of man-made, urban density. But would you say there is a kind of landscape condition to that site?

CD: Definitely. This is actually one place in the city where you feel very strongly the horizontality of the ground. That was part of the original design for the memorial park, and the one thing that we could work with. Actually it’s an artificial horizontality, that’s been created as the result of the catastrophic events that occurred there. In fact, in other areas you can still sense the original hills of lower Manhattan.

People often think our work is about being gentle or kind to the landscape, that we always want to merge form and the feral landscape, but that’s not really what it’s about at all. We’re simply about having a dialogue with the landscape, any landscape, even an artificial context in the middle of the city.

"People often think our work is about being gentle or kind to the landscape, that we always want to merge form and the feral landscape, but that’s not really what it’s about at all."

This dialogue is lacking in design discourse. So we’re not solely seeking to be landscape friendly; the dialogue can be mean or tough at times, but we want to strike up a discussion.

The discussion is not over

New York reality is intense, at the same time as people’s close proximity to each other’s lives creates a distance, here as elsewhere. But it is important to experience Ground Zero with one’s own body, says Dykers.

IHA: It is obvious that architecturally, there’s something very different happening in the memorial site, in the middle, than in the towers surrounding it, that have a very conventional relationship to their site. The opportunity to tie the whole situation at ground Zero together seems to me totally lost. There is an obvious opportunity to work in section in New York, which is lost if you treat a tall building simply as an extrusion of its footprint.

CD: Well, Libeskind’s idea with the masterplan was to create a spiral of tall buildings around the site, which is a sectional condition. Some of those projects are on hold at the moment, so I think we won’t know what that will be until all the buildings are built. But yes, the towers can be seen by some observers as conventional.

But it is important that this place in the city, including our building, needs to be seen through actual observation rather than through imagery. The pictures don’t seem to make it work, and even walking around the memorial and the pavilion right now doesn’t help all that much, because you can’t even go inside, and you can only experience two and a half facades... But still there’s a kind of quality to it that you get at eye level, which is central to the experience. And we were constantly designing the building from eye level.

The architectural challenge has been how to make something that was both coordinated with everything around it, in functional terms, and at the same time provided a natural condition in what is otherwise a traumatic place. People’s minds are traumatised when they go there. And it’ll be that way for a long time. So you have to give people a sense of comfort. But the place also needs to challenge you, which the pavilion does through its shifting shape and the balance of the surfaces between presence and elusiveness. It’s the kind of thing that probably won’t do to well in pictures for a while, but when you are there, at eye level, it is already happening.

An interview with Ben Hamilton-Baillietag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/people-stories/hamiltonbaillie-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Ben Hamilton-Baillie is the leading international expert on the development of “Shared Space”. Shared space is the term increasingly used to describe an emerging set of principles that allow traffic to be integrated into the social and cultural dynamics of towns and cities, challenging conventional engineering assumptions about the need for separation and controls. The Norwegian Roads Authority hosted a seminar on 24th November 2010 at the Litteraturhuset in Oslo at which Ben Hamilton-Baillie was the key speaker. After the event, Ola Bettum and Einar Lillebye spoke with Ben about shared space.

Ola Bettum/Einar Lillebye: Shared space would seem to be part of a wider renaissance in street design. Why do think this is?

Ben Hamilton-Baillie: Economics, combined with greater understanding of behavioural psychology and the importance of public space. Town centres have become functionally redundant as essential markets for goods and information – we can aquire all the goods and services we need from out-of-town superstores or through the internet. In its place we increasingly use cities because we wish to, not because we need to. And this change in the purpose of cities has huge implications for the quality and distinctiveness of public space.
We are also learning much more about human complexity. The Genome Project, understanding our DNA, and the remarkable intricacies of our interconnections, has allowed us to question many of the assumptions that gave rise to conventional traffic engineering and the principle of segregating traffic from other civic and social aspects of cities. I used the analogy of the ice-rink to illustrate this issue of counter-intuitive outcomes and complexity, and the contrast with simplistic traffic modeling.

OB/EL: Does this chime with political changes?

BHB: Yes, I believe so. During the last century, governments of both the left and right tended to assume that the state should assume responsibility for resolving all potential conflicts and interaction through increasingly complex regulation and control. The evolution of the traffic signal illustrates this tendency perfectly, removing the need to think and respond from the driver, and attempting to control behaviour through technology and legislation. We now understand more about the downside of states over-regulating and over-planning.
In addition, the fiscal realities of the European Union are having an effect. Even if they wished to, governments can now no longer afford the huge costs of regulating, controlling and enforcing every aspect of traffic behaviour. Traffic lights, signs, markings, barriers and bollards cost a fortune, and the recent public spending crises have highlighted the need to question the role of the state in many areas. The idea of streets and spaces being left to informal negotiation and local social protocols chimes with initiatives such as the new “Localism Agenda” in Britain, or what David Cameron refers to as “The Big Society”.

"Governments can now no longer afford the huge costs of regulating, controlling and enforcing every aspect of traffic behaviour."

OB/EL: You are fairly critical of much conventional traffic engineering?

BHB: I am quite happy with traffic engineering applied to single-purpose spaces, such as motorways or strategic roads. But streets and some rural roads or highly complex places, serving multiple roles and having to adapt to a wide range of circumstances. Treating streets as merely corridors or sewers for moving people and vehicles about ignores the real purpose of cities and of public space. I think shared space represents a fundamental rethink of the principles of segregation espoused by Colin Buchanan and his team when he wrote the influential “Traffic in Towns” in 1963. In contrast to Buchanan, I see no need to separate or segregate urban traffic from other aspects of civic space. Conventional engineering, especially safety engineering, also ignores the growing understanding of “risk compensation”, and the remarkable complexities surrounding safety and hazards explored by academics such as Professor John Adams of UCL. As he has said “Road safety is not rocket science – it’s much more complicated!”

"I see no need to separate or segregate urban traffic from other aspects of civic space."

OB/EL: Much debate in recent years has centred on removing cars and shifting to public transport etc. How does shared space fit into this debate?

BHB: I hope that shared space allows us to move on from the “pro-car / anti-car” debate. Cars and trucks are part of our social and economic structure, for better or worse. Shared space allows traffic to be integrated into the dynamics and social structure of cities. Rather than fighting the car, shared space principles simply allow the car to be used more efficiently in towns and cities. That is what is so encouraging about the findings that lower design speeds in places like Drachten in The Netherlands, Lund in Sweden, and Ashford in England are generating better journey times and reducing congestion and delays. Traffic and movement is the life-blood of cities, and treating the driver as human appears to generate more efficient flows as well as more civilized spaces and interaction.

OB/EL: Norway is a much more rural country than the south-east of England. Do you think shared space has relevant to life outside major cities?

BHB: Indeed. I do. In fact an increasing proportion of our work comes from rural areas and small villages, often bisected by a busy road. A very common problem is where a main road acts as a barrier between the two halves of a village. As a result each half withdraws into itself. So the post office, the pub, the small shop have not got a big enough catchment area, and close down. So the village life dies. The conventional response is to turn to clumsy traffic calming or signs or cameras.

Such clutter and devices are expensive. But they also erode the identity of a village, and thus reduce the human response to the context. Interestingly, the late Hans Monderman's work emerged from rural village schemes. He came from Friesland, a rural province of the Netherlands. As head of Road Safety for the northern Dutch provinces, his experiments with simplifying streets and removing clutter began in small communities. Only after many successful rural schemes did he start to test the principles with busier, more urban, intersections and streets in Drachten and Haren and so on. The principle of contextual design and low-speeds is as relevant for rural places as for big cities.

OB/EL: You placed great stress today on the importance of “design speed”.

BHB: I use the term “design speed” to distinguish from “speed limits”. Most of the discussion about speed is framed in terms of speed limits. But the critical question is not the speed limit, but what speed you want drivers to drive at. On a motorway, you want speeds of 110-120 kph. But in complex city spaces, there are clear disadvantages in designing streets where the speed is too high, because it means you have to build in long delay for each of the intersections. You want speeds that relate to the evolved capability of humans. Our physiology, our capacity to anticipate and communicate, has all evolved around the maximum speed of a fit young hunter, capable of running at around 28-30 kph or 18-21 mph.

"The critical question is not the speed limit, but what speed you want drivers to drive at."

We deliberately try to avoid saying that the design speed is a round number, like 20 or 30, because people will start thinking that's the limit. It's much easier to say "around 17 or 18, 12 or 22 or something". To design streets for 17 mph was a strange idea for some. But those differences in speed are really crucial to how a street works. New Road in Brighton has a design speed of 12 to 14; Ashford has a designed speed of 19 mph (28 kph).

OB/EL: Interesting – the speed of the tram through Oslo City Centre is about 16 kph or 10 mph.

BHB: Indeed. In most cities, the average journey time for traffic remains at around 9-10 mph, a speed determined by the efficiency of intersections, not the speed between them. Intersections work much more efficiently at low speeds, and low-speed, continuous flows can improve on such speeds. Thus in Bern, the City Engineer Fritz Kobi succeeded in improving capacity and safety and reducing delays on the key arteries into the city by removing all traffic lights and formal pedestrian crossings. Pedestrians just cross wherever they want, interacting with the slow, continuously flowing traffic. It turns out to be both cheaper and more efficient, and overcomes the barrier-effect of major roads.

OB/EL: There are different types of streets in any city. How do you see shared space in relation to busier strategic streets with high traffic volumes?

BHB: Well, cities need to be served by single-purpose, high capacity highways, and such roads are not appropriate for multiple use – for shared space. But we are learning more that shared space is not incompatible with high traffic volumes. Fritz Kobi’s Bern schemes have shown us that, as has the work to transform Kensington High Street in West London, which carries around 42,000 vehicles per day.

Rather than there being a hierarchy of street types, I prefer to think of a simple divide between the “highway” (single-purpose, consistent, predictable, state-controlled) and the “public realm” (multi-purpose, complex, unpredictable, informal, social). This means that you need clear transitions between the two, and that the character and form of these two worlds are completely different. There are aspects of shared space in the way the Diagonale in Barcelona functions, or the Champs Elysées in Paris. Both carry huge volumes of traffic, yet both are integral, iconic components in their respective cities, generating pedestrian promenading, and commanding high rentals. By contrast the Euston Road/Marylebone Road in London plays no urban spatial role – despite the huge potential offered by the great museums, libraries, railway stations, universities and institutions connected with it. It has just been conceived as a traffic sewer, with no urban quality whatsoever. Ironically it functions less well than its Barcelona and Paris equivalents, with comparable traffic volumes.

The work of Allan B. Jacobs and his colleagues draw on many shared space principles in their exploration of busy, high volume boulevards. But the design of major boulevards and multi-lane parkways is another whole subject for analysis. In our work we are increasingly developing a language where, by creating continuous flow, low- speed environment, you can still handle 35-40-50 thousand vehicles a day, but still retain it as part of the city.

OB/EL: Some people might be a bit confused that you are including Kensington High Street in the shared space category, because of its broadly conventional arrangements. How much regulation can you accept in a shared-space street?

BHB: Well, Kensington High Street is, in many ways, a very conventional looking street, with crossings and signals. It is also a very cleverly designed, elegant street. Councillor Daniel Moylan, the politician responsible for its regeneration, described it as a street wearing a classic, well-made suit. It is not flashy, or a whim of fashion; it doesn't shout too loudly. It is timeless, and will last for many, many decades. It's classic in every sense. But Kensington High Street is built entirely within the current regulatory framework. Entirely. As is every other scheme we've worked on. Ashford, New Road (Brighton) – they are all within the current regulatory framework. And what's interesting is that the regulatory framework is much less limiting than most engineers and politicians believe it to be. If you look at the actual regulatory framework of most countries; it hardly exists. There are guidelines and there are conventions. But that's different from regulations. In almost all cases the regulatory framework is much more flexible than most people assume. The UK's Institution of Civil Engineers, the ICE, has done a lot of good work to try to overcome some of the myths that constrain engineers into merely doing what they've always done because they believe that's what the regulations require. Many myths! You can usually do anything you like so long as you use your professional judgment.

OB/EL: Do you think the ugliness and clumsiness of many streets stems from poor engineering methods?

BHB: I think that good engineering always looks elegant. I don't believe there's a schism between good engineering and elegant design. When you look at all the great examples of engineering, they have a natural elegance to them. But when you look at the way we have configured responsibility for our streets, a strange schism has developed between different professions. I often ask local authorities, "Who's in charge of your streets?", and they can rarely answer. Because someone is in charge of street-lighting, somebody else in charge of drains, somebody else in charge of safety, somebody else is in charge of trams and buses, and somebody else in charge of bicycles, and so on. There are usually 20-30 different agencies, and no overall vision or co- ordination. So you get streets that look like somebody has tipped the contents of a rubbish bin all over them - a complete mess. Because no one is taking overall responsibility. I think we're being damaged or limited by people saying "I'm an engineer" or "I'm a landscape architect", or whatever, because that already sets up a silo around them. And one of the things that I find most important to do when addressing a street problem is to free people from the definitions that describe their profession.

"When you look at the way we have configured responsibility for our streets, a strange schism has developed between different professions. … So you get streets that look like somebody has tipped the contents of a rubbish bin all over them – a complete mess."

At Ashford we worked very hard to build an integrated design team. And that meant that the engineers, the landscape architects and street-lighting people, technicians and artists and everyone else developed an intimacy, a relationship which allowed them to really work as a single team. And that was very hard work! But it turned out to be quite a creative partnership. It meant accepting a lot of conflict, a lot of fights within the team. But that's good; a successful family has a lot of tension, you have arguments like a good community has a lot of friction within it. And I really worry when I go along to urban city meetings and the engineers are sitting along one side of the table and the design team on the other and they're being very polite to each other. Such standoffs do not generate good creativity. There needs to be an intimacy.

I think there are three things that need to happen in order to create great streets. The first is that you need a range of technical design skills. These can be learned, and can be adopted or copied from elsewhere; how to create low speed environments; how to create streets which encourage certain patterns of movements and so on. They are design skills, and they're important, but they are useless without two other things.

The second is organizational change. You cannot create great streets if one bunch of people working in one office block deal with highways, another bunch of people work in another building, with different values and different backgrounds, work on urban issues. Guaranteed failure! You have to re-organize your governmental functions, your community functions, to bring together all the necessary skills required. And that's a tough challenge for city managers or chief-executives in charge of organizational change. Because it means removing people from the security blanket of their professions.

"You must have politicians capable of determining, developing and articulating a vision of what you want your streets to be."

And the third, and maybe the most important element, is that you must have a vision for your street or city. And of course, that is a political decision, not a technical or a professional one. You must have politicians capable of determining, developing and articulating a vision of what you want your streets to be. Without that, no amount of brilliant, technical support or organization or structure will deliver if you don't know where you're going. You’ve got to have a vision. And that's also quite rare to find. Because very few politicians realize that they have the capacity to create a vision. Kensington High Street was successful because all those three things came together. You had a bunch of very skilled designers who could provide the technical skills. You had no organizational or cultural separation between the engineers and the planners and the environmental team and the landscape architects. That was a political move. And thirdly, most importantly, you had a politician who was capable of developing, articulating, and sticking to an absolutely clear set of principles about what he wanted the streets of the Royal Borough of Kensington &amp; Chelsea to be like. He wanted simplicity elegance, durability, timelessness. Of course, there's no right or wrong vision. Brighton wanted streets which were jazzy and hip and interesting and would attract a certain lifestyle. Ashford wanted a different sort of image. And every city, every place has a different set of values that they wish to express. But it's a political job to make sure that vision is communicated. Once you've got the vision, the organization, and the technical skills, you can do it. Then it's easy.

OB/EL: Ever since Gordon Cullen 50 years ago, observers have remarked on the loss of streetscape. Why has change taken so long?

BHB: Breaking away from established ways of doing things takes time. Hans Monderman warned me, just before he died, to expect 30 years of hard work before I saw much change. But in fact I have been lucky to be able to build on the pioneering work of people like Hans Monderman and Joost Vahl, to see change happen fairly quickly. I only coined the term “shared space” in 2003 to describe the approach developed by Hans Monderman and others, and it is amazing to remember how, as little time ago as five years, I was being seen by governments and professional bodies as mildly eccentric in suggesting that traffic could be fully integrated into urban design. Now the term shared space is widely used across Europe and North America, and has become an established part of mainstream policy and practice. The publication of the Manual for Streets in the UK marks an important landmark in the process – shared space has suddenly become an accepted approach to street design in many countries.

OB/EL: There seems to be particularly rapid progress in the UK.

BHB: Yes, this is interesting. Until recently, everyone was looking to The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden for pioneering work in this area. Hans Monderman’s last lecture tour was to London in November 2007, just six weeks before he died. As we parted company, he remarked that he believed that the UK, having started with integration and home zones very late, was now beginning to take the lead in this field. I think he was right. Schemes like Exhibition Road, Ashford Ring Road and New Road, Brighton are establishing a new paradigm and demonstrating what is possible. But there are also remarkable new schemes in Switzerland, such as Kobi’s work in Bern and the amazing Stadtlounge in St. Gallen.

OB/EL: Street design is the focus for many campaign organizations and lobby groups. Does this cause problems for you?

BHB: It certainly does! Streets are very public, very political, places, and every proposal is closely scrutinized by every pressure group, from those championing bicyclists or buses or pedestrians or blind people or business interests. I have had to be very careful in our own work to avoid being associated with any specific campaign group, regardless of my own values and sympathies. Shared space is all about integration, and that means avoiding over-attention on any one factor or group. We see our role as simply trying to help local authorities, governments and developers to spend their limited resources wisely, and not waste money on expensive equipment, futile signs or poor short-lived design. It is a difficult role. Everybody likes to interpret shared space in their own way and claim it for their own. We are asked to support groups campaigning for motorists, and groups campaigning against the car – all sorts. But shared space is not about promoting the interests of one particular group or user over another, but merely about setting the stage for different activities to interact.

OB/EL: That's interesting. It's very promising, given so much past emphasis on enlarging pedestrian areas, improving public transport and getting rid of cars. Shared space approach seems much more pragmatic.

BHB: Yes, absolutely. I think that's right, I am a great admirer of Jan Gehl and his colleagues, and they've done absolutely wonderful work. Copenhagen is a phenomenal success story. But I feel that that generation has run its course in the sense of that there's only so far you can go with exclusion. For them the removal of the car is an overriding theme. At times, of course, it's appropriate. But reality is that the car is with us, for better or worse, for at least a couple of generations. It's a wonderful liberating technology. For all its downside it has transformed most of our economic and social lives. And shared space offers the opportunity to welcome and exploit the good side of motor traffic, as it were. It needn't be a destructive force for streets, for cities.

"Shared space offers the opportunity to welcome and exploit the good side of motor traffic, as it were. It needn't be a destructive force for streets, for cities."

OB/EL: Some of your examples of shared space have emerged from seemingly very conservative communities – St. Gallen in Switzerland or Kensington in London. Does this surprise you?

BHB: Yes, sometimes it does! What is interesting about these examples is that they have all emerged from clear political visions for the particular cities concerned. Councillor Daniel Moylan in the Royal Borough of Kensington &amp; Chelsea provided the confidence and clarity to define and articulate a clear and comprehensive vision for his particular streetscapes. Other business communities like St Gallen are recognizing the clear economic benefits of developing a distinctive environment, streets that look and feel quite different to the next town. We may, I hope, see a time when city-streets stop looking all alike, using the same engineering-dimensions, engineering handbooks, and become absolutely different from each other. So the streets of Kensington-Chelsea will look different from the streets of Southwark, and the streets of London look different from the streets of Oslo, different from the streets of San Francisco or Los Angeles. So whatever, that once you strip away the notion of standardization/ regulation, you can be as free to be creative in street design as one can be in architecture. The Opera House here in Oslo could signal the way that you want to approach streets.

Good street design is all about context. So you try to express and manifest local values and local context. Clearly a design for Carnaby Street in London is not appropriate for Pall Mall. Because they have different contexts. The streets serve different purposes. Portobello Road is different from Exhibition Road. They have quite different functions and tell different stories. But both stories are perfectly valid. A small rural village has one story to tell and the market town has another, and a big city, a financial district, has another story to tell. Some cities' story is about heritage. It's about the preserving, reflecting the passing of age. But it's fine, because shared space allows you to reflect values and preferences. That's why I like that cartoon with the road sign, “Do anything you like ahead”. You can do anything you want.

Of course, that makes it sound as if it is easy. But of course, streets are never easy. And particularly developing a design language that allows somebody who is blind or partially sighted or so on to navigate their way through a street requires some very intelligent creative responses to reading space and navigating and so on. And I think we've begun to get as far as reaching base-camp on a journey to make more accessible and more readable environments. I think we can do much better than just the odd bit of tactile paving on the ground and crossings and blinking traffic-lights and all that.. And I hope that Exhibition Road and Ashford are beginning to explore how to do that a bit better.

OB/EL: Traditional safety engineering seems to be a block towards innovation and shared space? How have you tackled the risk-averse caution of the industry?

BHB: To take this forward one has to keep talking and keep discussing these issues at a variety of different levels. Firstly, it is very important to speak to politicians, because it empowers them to develop a vision to their city. Secondly, technically. You have to work with technical people, engineers in particular, Engineers are vital. And thirdly, publically. You also need is the support of the broader public. And that means working with the press, working with the media, working with television. You have to be creative about how you create a story and not be afraid of using the press; getting stuff into the public, even if it sounds absurd. No publicity is bad publicity. And when Jeremy Clarkson wrote his two-page rant in The Sun newspaper against Ashford ("this is madness, millions will die"!) It was great because what he articulated there was exactly the underlying scepticism of the public. It allowed us to really open the debate about safety, and two years later say "What was the problem?".

"This is madness, millions will die!" Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of the television show Top Gear, commenting on the Ashford project in The Sun newspaper.

But yes, certainly having something on the ground. Once you've got one scheme that feels right, the second and third are really much easier. Ashford has given us a scheme in Britain which has reassured people and unlocked the door. Before Ashford I had to take the politicians and the engineers on study tours to the Netherlands and Denmark and Sweden. Because you have to experience it direct. And of course, study tours are expensive and they're time consuming. But once you've got one or two examples in your home country or hometown which can be visited, then people can begin to expand those ideas.

OB/EL: You draw on a wide range of material to convey the potential for shared space. Is this deliberate?

BHB: Yes. Of course, it means trying to find ways to communicate the principles in ways that will keep people’s interest; entertain, provoke, make it funny, make it intellectually challenging. The subject of traffic engineering is not normally a very sexy subject. So I think you have to find creative ways to explore these issues, because it's so important to our lives. It's so important to cities. And I find that once your break through the notion that this is not just about some dull engineering documents, that this is about life I've never yet found a public meeting that thought this was a boring subject. Everyone looks at it. Because everyone loves streets, and likes public space and they have a view about public space and what public life should be about.

An interview with Alberto Pérez-Gómeztag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/people-stories/perez-gomez-history-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Marc J. Neveu: One premise of a discussion of the role of history for the contemporary practice of architecture is that the relationship between history and design should be activated.1 Implied in this premise is either a complete abandonment of history, or general dissatisfaction with approaches to history that focus on a canon that is considered as little more than a pattern book organized by typologies or styles. How would you characterize the relationship between history and praxis?

Alberto Pérez-Gómez: These are very serious questions!

There is some real reason for the dissatisfaction that exists. It stems from a general misunderstanding of what history can provide for the future or practicing architect. The origin of this problem can be pinpointed historically. This is useful because it means that the situation we face has not always been the same.

There are many aspects to this. The first issue is that our understanding of history as styles or typologies comes from the beginning of the nineteenth century. One can find the origins of this understanding by tracing its precedents. Knowing this, we are not condemned to understand history in those terms. That moment reduced the field of architectural history to a history of buildings organized according to formal taxonomies or stylistic characteristics. This was very unfortunate but it has stuck, generally, in the teaching and practice of architecture. When one understands the history of architecture in those terms it becomes easy to dismiss it because we don’t actually pursue it very far.

There is another aspect to this issue, which is that prior to the 18th century, architects had relatively little use for history because, generally, western culture (as well as other cultures, but certainly our own western culture) believed that architecture’s meanings came from an almost direct mapping or reflection of a cosmic order that was trans-historical itself. The use of history for someone like Palladio or anyone prior to that time was limited. There were chronicles, myths and stories, narratives that modulated appropriate actions, but practice was not “historical” in the sense that it built upon the past towards some progressive future, potentially becoming prescriptive or instrumentalized. So this creates the problem. In a certain way, the understanding of history by historians has been problematic since its inception. So that is one of the major tasks that we have to try to grapple with.

How, then, does one go about reconnecting and finding appropriate ways to connect history to design? One must start by understanding the proper nature of history as hermeneutics.2 What is at stake is more than form. Architectural programs have political consequences. What one learns from historical precedents, from the stories we tell about the stuff that we admire in the past, is that they can be translated into our own questions and allow us to act in an ethical way. History does not orient us very much about what forms we should use. It is much more about the appropriateness of our actions, which is probably much more important than the specific formal problems we usually identify as architects.

"History does not orient us very much about what forms we should use. It is much more about the appropriateness of our actions."

Saundra Weddle: Why do you think the 18th and 19th century mode of engaging the past has persisted? Does it have something to do with the way we use history, culturally, or the way that architects in particular use history?

APG: From the beginning of the 19th century the relationship between the thoughts we have as architects and our actions have been construed instrumentally. This is something that was not always there. While this possibility was prepared through the history of western philosophy since Plato, it only reaches practical fields like architecture, engineering or medicine in the beginning of the 19th century. Instrumentality dictates that we also find instrumental ways to connect to historical precedent. Thus, all technological disciplines become more efficient, but they also tend to ignore their foundation in relevant human questions, often failing in their tasks (like medicine that cures disease but becomes incapable of healing, or architecture that provides shelter but is incapable of providing for dwelling). In the end, instrumentalized history is futile because its intention is basically resolved in technology, and there are usually more expeditious ways of dealing with these questions than historical narratives.

MJN: What do you think is the best mode of delivery so that these questions you’ve talked about can be asked, for example in architectural education?

APG: Well, the first thing is for the teacher to identify those questions for himself or herself. It is always very personal. Identifying those questions is crucial – much more than covering material or simply conveying information. One way to get at the questions is to filter our heritage through the professors’ fascinations, through the questions that really matter to us, so that the historical topics are delivered through these questions rather than in an anonymous way as when one simply conveys ”facts”.

However, to do this effectively one must acknowledge that the disciplinary boundaries between architectural history and other aspects of historical phenomena, including the history of science, the history of philosophy, the history of mentalities, and material histories, are not solid. One of the big problems is that even among architectural historians there is the sense that one has the “right” methodology; that this may be the only one that is valid and somehow this excludes other things. I vehemently support breaking down these barriers.

"One of the big problems is that even among architectural historians there is the sense that one has the “right” methodology."

For me, it has been crucial to connect the history of religious ideas, the history of science and the history of philosophy to thinking about architecture and to the thoughts of architects throughout history. That is the only way one can articulate the questions of our predecessors that resonate with our own questions and that make history relevant. Otherwise it is always a thing of the past. Methodologically, it is not a bad idea, for example, to structure lectures where you deal with historical material and connect it, even force it into connections with present questions and open up the debate and try to understand how this historical background gives guidelines and sets precedents on how things are not as new as they seem to be. This is always the big problem. We think we have to re-invent the wheel and we don’t. There are thematic connections but there are also questions that show how things are resonant and how one can learn from these historical examples. Demonstrating the “resonance” between Hans Scharoun’s amazingly inventive Berlin Philharmonic Hall and a Greek amphitheatre in the mountains, for example, might be invaluable to a young student who believes in the unqualified merits of novelty.

I do believe, however, that there is something to be said for chronology, for knowing that Gothic comes after the Romanesque. As a student I remember getting lost if I didn’t have this basic information. It is a negotiation. The professors should find those resonances, even if we are not completely sure about the connections. Even merely opening the questions can be an excellent pedagogical tool.

SW: In your view, are there fundamental, non-negotiable principles of architectural history that anchor the discipline and distinguish it from others?

APG: Yes, I think there are, but this is a long lecture as well. Architecture does offer something specific. It has something to do with us finding a place that is ordered, that speaks back to us, that allows us to dream, that orients us, as I often say, like a metaphysics that is made into material, that allows the inhabitant/participant to find his or her own place in the world in relation to an institutional framework, wherever we may be in time and space. There is something very basic that architecture does offer and has offered throughout history because the questions that architecture addresses are resonant with the Big Questions of mankind. There are resonances with religion, with science, and particularly with philosophy.

"There is something very basic that architecture does offer and has offered throughout history because the questions that architecture addresses are resonant with the Big Questions of mankind."

Architecture does address those questions, and it provides answers that are particular to specific times and places and that allow humanity to live well, let’s say, and pass on to others the savoir vivre, a kind of wisdom that we may profit from as the heirs of these traditions and that we often disregard completely, particularly in modern times. This, of course, begs questions.

As modern individuals we are all very arrogant; we feel that we can live in our own universe and that we are almost unaffected by physical environments. We think we can live in our computer screens. But in the end, the physical spaces that we make really do matter. They contribute to our well being or our pathologies. That is where history matters. If we don’t learn from those precedents, we have nowhere to look because we have nothing else that we share today. We have all of our little beliefs and half beliefs. We don’t share a cosmology, we don’t share a religion and so we inhabit a fragmented and cosmopolitan world. The only way to find appropriate ways of action is by looking at history.

SW: You mentioned that architectural history has an obligation to provide a kind of framework or orientation that we can use to compare to our experience to understand it more fully. I wonder about the practice of the architectural historian. Do you think there are guiding principles that are non-negotiable for the historian?

APG: Of course, I believe some history is better than other history. Histories are stories after all. Histories that try to be objective and factual can be useful, but I always miss the dimension of interpretation. I don’t know if I would call this “non-negotiable,” but my preference is to frame architectural history in terms of hermeneutics. A way of looking at history that comes from the philosophical tradition of the 20th century, particularly Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur, who help the professional historian write a more helpful history. Why? Because in this kind of framework the issue is to foreground interpretation. Interpretation is basically how we get at truths. And interpretations mean that we valorize the questions.

We first find the questions that are important to each one of us and then we understand their importance in terms of their cultural significance. Then we look at the material and interpret it through these questions so that it can speak to us. It is what [Gadamer] calls a “fusion of horizons” bringing that which is far, near, while understanding that you can never be a Roman, that you can never be a Greek, that you can never be monastic. There is always going to be this distance, but this distance should be celebrated and used to foreground our questions so that the material becomes useful for us. Of course, this is very much at odds with the idea of a historian who thinks of the discipline as a scientific endeavor that is going to find the objective facts about one thing or another. That is futile waste of time (even though I use many of these books because people do some very serious work and spend all of their lives working in archives and this is very, very useful.) But in the end, for me, as an educator of architects, what matters is this interpretative framing of the historical material that connects in a dialogue with present questions.

SW: An issue that interests us is that the discipline of architectural history is not autonomous. Increasingly, as you’ve said, it relies upon and appropriates from the resources and methods of other disciplines. What, in your opinion, has been gained by architectural historians appropriating from other fields of inquiry?

APG: For me, this is simply real architectural history because if architecture is a manifestation of culture, then you cannot parcel out these things and consider that the history of architecture is simply the history of buildings and leave out gardens, and leave out the history of stage set designs, and leave out the history of ideas. It is kind of obvious, but it is very demanding. For architectural historians of an art historical bent, let’s say, there seems to be resistance to opening up the field like that. Of course it is difficult, but we have no other option. Otherwise we are condemned to irrelevancy.

MJN: Although much of historians’ work seems to have little to do with contemporary issues, there is that great possibility that history might matter, that it might be relevant. So rather than being operative and rather than disappearing into history, is there a way of making history relevant?

APG: The way I see this problem, the issue is to preserve a rationality or objectivity of the historical narrative, and this always led to a suspicion about hermeneutics or foregrounding questions that forces the connections to the present.

For me, the way to deal with this problem is rather to disallow that there is a rationality at work in historical processes, or a dialectic at work in historical process, and to understand that in this mass of material, evidence and touching moments that we get from the past, there are connections that are self-evident for each of us, which we have to learn to cultivate and from which real questions that matter in the present could stem. There is this connection between hermeneutics and phenomenology.3 We must learn to recognize the importance of what matters to each one of us, questioning “common sense” skepticism that always defers to the opinions or the objective facts of others. Believing in the evidence of your experience. This, for me, is very crucial. It is also at odds with the homogenizing that happened in the aftermath of deconstruction, when historical narratives and valorization were taken down to the lowest common denominator. The fact is that certain artifacts move you and bring forward questions and connect in an a-historical way. We all have access to this. It is a question of exposure. This is part of what good architectural teachers should do for their students. It is important to understand that these moments of epiphany matter, to cultivate them, and to valorize them. Then we can construct stories that are incredibly valuable. I don’t think that the past is valuable just because it is past. This connection between phenomenology and hermeneutics is very important.

SW: Traditionally, the product of the historian’s work has been the publication or conference presentation, sometimes a book review; today, the historian’s work also finds an audience in the blog, which are becoming an important component of architectural discourse. There may be images or drawings, but the essential product of the architectural historian’s work is the text. What other forms might the work of history take? On what terms should these forms be evaluated?

APG: History is basically stories; otherwise maybe we are into some other forms of expression. Maybe some historians want to make documentaries, to use other media; it is basically about telling stories. What is most important, however, is dialogue. Part of the problem with the media that you mention is that sometimes it is forgotten that the moment of communication is really dialogical. This is crucial.

I have tried very hard to engage people in oral communication. Here at McGill we write a little bit, but not as much as other graduate programs. We are always talking, always presenting, always discussing. Plato is, for me, crucial here. He is at the beginning of the technology of writing applied to philosophy in the dialogs, and yet they are dialogs. He says on more than one occasion that we have to be careful with the written word because it is an instrument of forgetting, and that the written word is not real knowledge. Real knowledge happens in the dialogical moment, in the moment of assent when we meet to communicate face to face. The historian must not forget that dialogue is where history happens, where you make present what is important here and now. The other forms of writing are very interesting, sophisticated, and crucial in a way. I am not claiming that we should get rid of books. What has priority is the oral, the word as spoken. Or alternatively, for the student of history, to receive the written word dialogically, not passively.

"The historian must not forget that dialogue is where history happens, where you make present what is important here and now."

This interview was originally written for Beyond Precedent. Journal of Architectural Education. Ed. George Dodds, Marc J. Neveu and Saundra Weddle. No. 64:2, Blackwell Publishing, March 2011.&#160;&#8617;

Hermeneutics is a discipline of historical interpretation that acknowledges that history is our only source of orientation in a world where cosmologies and religions are no longer universal, while recognizing that there is no single narrative that is final. It recognizes the importance of engaging works of the past (our cultural heritage) in a genuine "dialogue" that may address the relevant questions we ask. Nevertheless, with its roots in phenomenology, it also acknowledges the primacy of experience and valorization as a basis for the questions we ask and the stories we tell. This tradition was started by Gian Battista Vico, taken up in the 19th C. by Dilthey, and more recently by Girogio Grassi, Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricoeur. Alberto Pèrez-Gòmez&#160;&#8617;

Phenomenology is used here as it is defined in the Continental philosophical tradition starting with Edmund Husserl and passing through Martin Heidegger and particularly, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (in his Phenomenology of Perception and in a number of essays dedicated to artistic problems, such as "Eye and Mind"). It is a technical term that has changed historically yet generally acknowledges perception and as being primary, driven by sensorimotor skills and "given" with meanings, and consciousness as both embodied and world-dependent, rather than simply being the result of brain processes. The simple fact that consciousness is NOT independent from the environment foregrounds the great importance of architecture (as the framework of human actions) in our experience. This position has been followed up more recently in works of "subversive" cognitive scientists and neuroscientists such as Alva Noë.&#160;&#8617;

An interview with Brit Andresentag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/people-stories/andresen-10/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

What is a Norwegian House? Throughout most of the 20th century, Norwegian modernist architects dreamt of openness, of large glazed walls and slender mullions, of the minimal detailing of Mies and the temperate climes of Southern Europe or California. But universalist ideals, the so-called ”International Style” quickly becomes problematic in a Northern European climate, and more problematic the further north you go. After a century of a generalist, homogenised approach to architectural form and technology, environmental and energy issues are pulling the constructional strategies of different climatic regions in different directions again. In Norway, we now need an architectural reply which looks for the inherent qualities in our particular situation.

Brit Andresen, professor at the University of Queensland and partner in Andresen O’Gorman Architects, was born, partly raised, and trained in Norway, and lives in Australia. She is a Norwegian citizen and an Australian resident.

Ingerid Helsing Almaas: You know the Norwegian climate and you have been fed the Scandinavian modernist ideals through your architectural training. And then you have lived and practiced for 30 years in Australia, in Queensland, in a climate where all those ideals can suddenly be realised. Looking at these two realities, what do you think Norwegian architecture could be if we finally turned our back on the old dream of openness?

Brit Andresen: Intuitively, the flat-roofed glass box is not the obvious building solution for either sub-tropical Australia or Norway.

However, there seems to be real possibilities in architecture for expressing the coexistence of opposing conditions. We recognize that the human appetite seeks balance when faced with extremes – for example we long for sweetness when we have too much bitterness and vice versa. This analogy might be extended to our experience of the environment – so that we long for light where we have too much darkness or for cool shade where there is too much bright heat. Similarly, in architecture we search for intimate enclosure in super-scale rooms and wide-open spaces in contrast to confining interiors.

"In its extreme, modernism can be said to have banished interiority and lost the art of making the "world of the interior"."

Modernism strived for a continuum between the inside and the outside to find freedom from conventions of past traditions. In its extreme, modernism can be said to have banished interiority and lost the art of making the “world of the interior” – architecture of the modernist continuum no longer depended on a defined interior. And yet, the making of a defined interior, “the world inside”, presents us with the all-important architectural questions about shelter. It also encourages new ways of regarding relations with its twin-opposite – the room, open to the world outside.

Making such a relationship – coexistence between opposing conditions ¬ is an architectural search. Alvar Aalto, for example, proposed that a Finnish house could have both an interior winter face, and a summer face – such as an open porch and terrace – on the exterior.

In the sense of the coexistence of opposite spatial conditions, a Norwegian architecture might incorporate both the “wooden caves” and the “world of penetrated layers” that Christian Norberg-Schulz talks about.1
Generally, in architecture we could also aim for a more balanced coexistence between the poetical and the pragmatic in the design of our homes, buildings and cities.

IHA: I think the view has been the saving grace much of Norwegian modernist architecture. The view to some magnificent outside, in both small- and large-scale buildings, takes the attention away from the indifference of the interior. But compared, for example, with Japanese traditions of borrowed landscapes, this is not very developed, conceptually or culturally. Another reference might be Adolf Loos, He was obsessed with the intricacies of the interior, yet he is seen very much as part of the early modernist revolt against convention.

Einar Bjarki Malmquist: There is no reveal in Norwegian houses. No gradual discovery. You always get the big picture immediately. Wham! It privileges the experience of the view, whatever that view is, over all other experiences.

BA: Yes, there is an art to framing a view or in placing an ordinary window in a wall as, for example, Ann Cline describes so well in “A Hut of One’s Own”.2 The subtlety that transforms the ordinary, such as the positioning of Cline’s window, derives from two opportunities. The first is the opportunity to create simultaneous readings, or layers of meaning (not-only/but-also), and the second is the opportunity to establish a world of interaction.

IHA: That would be an especially interesting spatial strategy in cold climate. What do you mean by emergence? Does that have a constructive aspect, or is it mainly a question of the immediate, sensual experience?

BA: If we think of the Italian portico, a space that you can make semi-enclosed, or the English greenhouse, or Aalto’s porches – these seem to me to be places that could mediate between inside and outside in Norwegian houses. Traditionally, there is the “vindfang”, but that has limited functionality. There is also the “svalgang”, but again this is primarily a circulation space.

Of course such spaces compete with indoor spaces for light – but what they offer, these threshold spaces, is very significant, potentially also in an extreme northerly climate.

In Architectural Reflections, Colin St John Wilson draws our attention to the phenomenon that at any point in time “…we are inside or outside; or on the threshold between. There are no other places to be”.3
This reduction to three places draws attention to the potential in architecture, both poetical and pragmatic, for expressing spatial difference and boundaries between those differences.

"The porch, portico and veranda are places where architecture can engage with qualities of the “in-between”."

The porch, portico and veranda are places where architecture can engage with qualities of the “in-between”. A semi-enclosed, in-between-place for greeting, homecoming, lingering and leaving the secure interior, presents potential for supporting social ritual and reconciling or mediating environmental contrasts.

IHA: Extreme temperature, particularly the cold, is a challenge for making these kinds of spaces in Norway. Conservatories and porches tend to extend the interior of the house during those seasons when you can be outdoors anyway. But as my husband Simon, who is British, says: Norwegian houses really need the opposite; they need to be bigger in the winter than in the summer. That is a real architectural challenge.

BA: Well, that, too, is an opportunity for re-invention and expression.

EBM: And you have to do it in a reduced space. As far as environmental sustainability goes, the most significant thing architects – and clients – can do, is to reduce the total built area, which in Norway means the total heated area. Even in the winter most heated rooms stand empty most of the time, while we move from heated room to heated room, spending a few hours here and there, sleeping, eating and so on.

But the re-introduction of the intermediate spaces, with reference to the Australian house, could inform a re-thinking of this as well. A house is often very static. There is little difference in the structure between summer and winter, little you can do to modify your environment, and as a consequence a lot of technology is needed to control it.

BA: Tuning houses with moveable elements to moderate enclosure etc., is easier in climates that are not as extreme as Norway’s. Brisbane, for example, has a temperate coastal climate – mid-winter temperatures are about +10 to +25 and mid-summer +25 to +35oC. Even within reasonable margins of temperature tolerance it would be possible to camp outside all year. Australian architects, like Glenn Murcutt, Richard Leplastrier and Peter Stutchbury for example, have made beautiful use of this opportunity mainly in open landscapes. These architectural “campsites” are privileged locations, of course, but local climates are moderated for wind and heat by ventilating and screening with louvres, battens, layered roof and wall elements etc., and solar gain is achieved through orientation and material selection. “Camping” like this is not for everyone, but clients and architects who select this way of living certainly build up a sensitivity to their surrounding environments.

"There seems to be real possibilities in architecture for expressing the coexistence of opposing conditions."

IHA: Can you say something about your background from NTH, the technical university in Trondheim? You must have had your training there at a time when universal solutions were in focus?

BA: Obviously construction was related to the Norwegian climate, focussing on heat loss, insulation and cold bridging, which was probably a useful way of learning the core principles for any climate.

Professor Arne Korsmo was among the many teachers who taught us. It seemed to me that the teaching tended to stress pragmatic aspects, and I think this was well taught. I remember there was an introduction to modernism, with glass and concrete and images of outdoor living. I also distinctly remember classes by Professor Erling Gjone on particularly pre-C19th Norwegian timber architecture, including the farmhouses and the stave churches. One summer we made measured drawings of timber structures that intensified our understanding of materials and construction.

After completing my studies I was awarded a Norwegian-Dutch scholarship and moved to the Netherlands. One event after another took me abroad, and so I never practiced in Norway. In the 1970s I practiced in Cambridge, where I was part of the team that won the competition for the Burrell Museum in Scotland. When the project was temporarily “shelved” I travelled to Australia to take up a teaching position for a year or so until the economic situation improved.

IHA: That must have been a very different climatic context?

BA: And a new and ancient landscape of sub-tropical plants and animals. But yes, I had to re-learn construction in the first few years. Peter, my husband and partner, had worked as a carpenter’s assistant before he graduated as an architect and he knew Australian hardwood timbers, particularly the eucalypts. Australian hardwoods have different properties from Norwegian timbers. Most Eucalyptus timbers, however, should not be used in the same way as a North American or European softwood.

We have written: “Most species of Australian hardwood offer magnificent material for domestic building. Strong and durable, the timber is capable of playing a significant role in exterior expression. The inherent toughness of Australian hardwoods usually requires that they be used while still ‘green’, at high water content, for easier workability. Cut from logs with a pronounced spiral growth and a high variability of moisture from heartwood to sap wood, the material continues to dry, usually while held in the building. The timber is subject to inconsistent shrinkage, warping, twisting and cupping across the grain. This has been the traditional criticism of hardwood for building construction. Hardwood remains an active material after the construction has occurred.”

When it is exposed to take advantage of its durability and strength, the hardwood is available to contribute to the expressive form of the building in which it plays such a physical part. The timber frame is released from its concealment in the stud wall, and a number of architectural opportunities become possible.

IHA: That particular possibility is not available to us in Norway.

BA: So you have to look for different opportunities for expression.

EBM: There are a number of new technical possibilities opening up with the lamination technology, the timber slabs, where you can work with timber as a mass.

BA: Timber is a wonderful material. The tree, with its hierarchy of parts and capacity for yielding dimensional variation, inspires ways of building as diverse as weaving with fibres, layering and bending with laths, framing networks of posts and beams and ”lafting” with logs laid horizontally.

"Timber is a wonderful material. The tree, with its hierarchy of parts and capacity for yielding dimensional variation, inspires diverse ways of building."

EBM: In Norway, the programme of energy conservation also means that what you often end up with is a timber concept, which is then covered up with the necessary thick layer of insulation. This challenges our expectations of a framed building.

You said you had to relearn a number of things. Was there anything that you had already learned in Norway that was valid or interesting in Australia?

BA: Many of the architectural principles introduced in Norway remain valid. There are also some particular elements that we included in our work, such as the wooden, built-in “bed-box” sometimes found in older timber houses in Norway.

EBM: What about the other way? Are there Australian ways of doing things that we can learn from in Norway? Shading devices for example, or low-tech solutions for natural cooling?

BA: In the sub-tropics, where I work, operable or fixed, external, timber batten screens are used to shade walls and windows to reduce heat-gain and glare from a low morning and afternoon sun. These devices are based on simple well-known principles.

I expect, however, that the harsh weather in Norway would require sound local knowledge of materials, techniques and detailing – sometimes re-discovered in older traditional building practices.

Norberg-Schulz, Christian: “ Treverk,” i Arkitekturhefte 1, published by Trelastindustriens Landsforening, Oslo,1998, p. 8. “The Nordic people still dream of wooden caves, while the Japanese live in a world of penetrated layers.”&#160;&#8617;

Cline, Ann: A Hut of One’s Own – Life Outside the Circle of Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 28.&#160;&#8617;

An interview with Helen & Hardtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/stories/people-stories/helenhard-10/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

“Evocative and sensual” is how the duo Helen &amp; Hard describe the structure they have created for the World Exposition in Shanghai 2010. Helle Benedicte Berg spoke to Reinhard Kropf about the challenges of creating innovative and at the same time sustainable architecture - for such a super-scale commercial event as the Expo.

Reinhard Kropf: Originally we weren’t interested in competing for the Norwegian Expo pavilion. That is, until we heard that the theme would be “Better City. Better Life”, and that it revolved around sustainable urban development and urbanisation. It was a creative challenge to explore how such a contribution, where enormous resources are spent just to be thrown away afterwards, also has the possibility to be sustainable and meaningful for a longer period of time.

“It was a creative challenge to explore how such a contribution, where enormous resources are spent just to be thrown away afterwards, also has the possibility to be sustainable and meaningful for a longer period of time.”

Helle Benedicte Berg: Which would seem to be a contradiction?

RK: It was clear to us from the outset that the life of the pavilion after the Expo was the most important form-generating force in this project. Or more precisely: How the reuse may mirror what Norway would like to convey in such a setting; and simultaneously express a concrete spatial and structural idea. In short, this structural idea consists of fifteen “trees” built of Norwegian laminated wood and Chinese bamboo, which together form the spatial arena of the pavilion. Each tree can easily be flat-packed into a container and reerected elsewehere after the Expo. The “roots” of the trees make up the exhibition, which are woven together to make an organic experience landscape. The treetops are made with a membrane ceiling, which is divided into fifteen four-point sails.

HBB: What possibilities did the context provide? The site and the area along the Huang-pu River in the centre of Shanghai? We have heard how traditional homesteads were demolished and people relocated for the benefit of the Expo constructions?

RK: From the outset, we were interested in understanding the history of the Expo site. We did some preliminary investigations into the relocation projects where tens of thousands of families were relocated to new housing areas outside Shanghai. China’s relocation policy is complex and in our view radical, and it is difficult to understand it from a European point of view, which is more protective of the individual. Cultural differences aside, it appears that many people find that these new housing projects lack common areas, areas for play and recreation. So this need became the conceptual starting point for our development of the pavilion. Our original idea was that it would be relocated and reused as park installations and playgrounds in the new housing areas. In hindsight we see that this, in its original form, was naïve, and not possible to realise in such a short time frame. But the idea created a meaningful driving force that was essential for the development of the project. The result of this early contextual study is still embodied in the pavilion – in the abundance of “trees” in a park landscape that can be easily deconstructed, moved, reconstructed and adjusted to fit new places and activities.

HBB: Your practice has previously expressed that you aim to explore the potential for sustainability and resource management in each of your projects. How has that been realised here?

RK: Apart from our conscious use of resources as a consequence of the short-lived Expo event, we asked some more general questions in the competition phase, related to how Norway could contribute to the theme “Better City. Better Life”. We recruited a resource group of people with a knowledge of and grounding in Chinese society. After a few workshops at Tou Scene in Stavanger, we concluded that Norway’s contribution should be to emphasise recreation areas, parks and meeting points in the city through open and democratic processes. The exhibition in the pavilion is based on these ideas. Moreover, the use of wood in the pavilion is environmentally friendly. We believe that there is potential for a transfer of knowledge to China in this area of technology.

HBB: To what degree have you employed local people and resources?

RK: Various organisations, groups and individuals have become involved in the work on the reuse of the structures. We have held workshops with students from GAFA in Guangzhou and from the Tongji University of Shanghai on how the trees may be reused. The results were presented in Guangzhou and Shanghai in November, and we are hoping that the collaboration with these institutions will continue. Another early intention was to build the trees using a new product called Glue-bam, i.e. glue laminated bamboo. We started a collaboration with the product patent-owner. But this part of the project unfortunately failed, as glue-bam has yet to become an approved building material in China. We still used bamboo as the building material for all the secondary parts of the trees, though; in the roots that make up the exhibition and the “landscape of perception” and in the lining of the branches that conceal all the technical installations. We have also collaborated closely with the Chinese practice SHZF, especially in the detailed design and follow-up phase. And with the exception of the main structure for the trees, the entire pavilion is produced in China.

HBB: This is a commercial project – Shanghai Expo is being compared to the Olympic games in Beijing. How has this influenced your architectural expression?

RK: Yes, it is a commercial project, but the development process has mainly been driven by bureaucratic forces. This has been a great challenge and frustrating at times; especially in view of the short deadlines we have had. But it is exactly this impossible situation – with various partners involved, cultural differences, the commercial spectacle on the one hand and Expo theme on the other – that has also been like an inspiring beehive. From the outset we were aware that we were skating on thin ice and that we needed a robust and flexible concept that could endure all the troubles along the way. With this in mind, we developed these fifteen trees that contain “everything”, a visible and entertaining pavilion which still clearly conveys an important message.

HBB: You are ambitious. In the context of your architecture, what is the intention behind the Expo-pavilion?

RK: We have wanted to weave different elements together into a new evocative and perceptible landscape. In the office we called it “the Expo garden”. Each “tree” combines construction, skin, infrastructure, technology, exhibition and interior. The trees are grouped together in an interpretation of four characteristic Norwegian landscapes: Coast, forest, fjord and the Arctic. These are also thematically emphasised in films etc. Through this interweaving we want to express some of the multifaceted relationships between nature, culture and commercial activities in Norwegian society. The intention is that these aspects inspire different behaviour and perceptions; from sensuous play, social life and intellectual stimuli to pure entertainment without it becoming a cacophony of impressions, or too obvious or predictable.

HBB: You say you want the architecture to counteract boredom. How has Shanghai and China been an inspiration in that regard?

RK: A playful expression in itself is not important to us. Some of our projects have a playful expression because they mirror playful processes and experiments, and because they invite people to different forms of play. These are projects like “Base Camp”, the adventure facilities for children and youngsters by the Preikestolen Mountain Lodge, the Geopark in Stavanger, where the main theme is the re-use of material from the oil industry, or the Expo pavilion.

“The forest has been our inspiration at a superior level in this project because it is a fantastic playground for physical activity, exploration, social and associative play. It was exactly this performative freedom that we wanted in the pavilion”.

In case of the pavilion, the forest has been our inspiration at a basic level in the project, because the forest is a fantastic playground for physical activity, exploration, social and associative play. It was exactly this performative freedom that we wanted in the pavilion. During the process we realised that with 15 000 visitors per day, the interaction between the visitors and the pavilion needed to be controlled. At the same time the intention was that the associations that the pavilion inspires would move freely: from a forest to a Chinese dragon to a landscape of snow, to a covered market, and so on.

HBB: Helen &amp; Hard are known for working closely with their clients and for making use of different media in their work processes. You shoot films, write stories, do interviews. What has your approach been here, in that you have had to relate to a different language, a different culture, other social norms and conventions?

RK: The cultural differences became a serious challenge that we had not foreseen from the outset. Luckily, we have a Chinese employee in our practice who helped out a lot. Innovation Norway also recruited a Chinese resource group who evaluated the pavilion and the exhibition throughout the process, which proved to be useful and informative. Due to the many participants and variables in the design process, we fixed conditions at the micro- and meso levels which allow for a certain degree of self-organisation within a clearly established language. The entire exhibition landscape, for instance, is made of prefabricated bamboo boards that are cut and put together according to various principles within each landscape. Regardless of whether the landscape needs to be changed, we have established an overall unity in the expression.

HBB: In the World Expo in Brussels in 1958, Sverre Fehn represented Norway with a pavilion in Norwegian laminated wood. You have called architects like Sverre Fehn and Christian Norberg-Schulz the “Norwegian purists of modernism”. Do you think such “Norwegianness” helps or hinders the understanding of your work?

RK: That quote is from a conversation about Sverre Fehn’s and Christian Norberg-Schulz’ perception of a predefined and pure relation between the architecture and a cultural, geographic and landscape context. This relation partly has categorical and essentialist traits that are not very suitable for the development of projects in changing and culturally complex environments. We perceived Sverre Fehn’s and Norberg-Schulz’ teaching as focusing on an increased sensibility towards what is significant and essential in a situation, articulated in a poetic language that may be moulded into clear structures, material authenticity and meaningful architectonic motives. In such work, context is understood in more purist norms, categories and essences rather than as a relational creation, an interwoven topology of situational circumstances.

HBB: I suppose you needed a more open approach for the project in Shanghai. What does Norway and China have to offer each other, in the current architectural situation?

RK: I am sure there is potential for exchange. However, the political conditions and the scale of Norwegian and Chinese architectural projects are so different that it is difficult to point out concrete possibilities for transfer of knowledge and professional exchange. We have experienced that the precondition for collaboration lies in a clear and specialized competence needed in the Chinese market. Of course they also shop for European stars.

HBB: Can you imagine doing any more projects in China?

RK: We would like to do an environmentally friendly housing project or a restoration project. It would be interesting to transform many of the old villages that are being demolished in Shanghai into new neighbourhoods. And we still hope to be able to work on the reuse of the fifteen trees.

An interview with Kenneth Framptontag:www.architecturenorway.no,2006:/stories/people-stories/frampton-06/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Ingerid Helsing Almaas: Let us start with the idea of place. The importance that for example Christian Norberg-Schulz, particularly in his later works, gives to the idea of Genius Loci, has had far-reaching consequences here in Norway. I would go so far as to say that a simplified interpretation of this idea is the foundation for what has actually now become part of our building legislation, namely the idea that the aesthetic quality of the built environment can be safeguarded by referring to local, traditional building forms. To put it bluntly, that you can build what you want as long as it has a pitched roof. One thing is the conserving effect that this has on the architecture of a small country, another thing is the political consequences of such an idea: Norberg-Schulz connects place very strongly to the definition of identity, personal as well as national. Norway has been at peace for over 50 years, we are an affluent nation. For the past couple of generations, the idea that where you come from defines who you are has not been very problematic. But you don’t have to look very far before this concept actually becomes deadly. Look at Serbs, Croats and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia for example.

Will this retrospective idea of place be able to adapt to the increasing movement of people, to globalisation? How could one develop an idea of place that made room for the diverging experiences of life that is the reality in most European countries today?

Kenneth Frampton: It is difficult to know where to begin. I think that when I moved to the United States in 1965, it “politicised” me, meaning that until I went to the United States, I was totally naive about power for example, and the relationship between power and money... I don’t know what I thought; but the United States makes certain things very clear. An English acquaintance said to me once, in a drunken evening: ”You have to understand, in England the claws are hidden, but in the United States the claws are visible.” And about the same time I read Hannah Arendt’s book The Human Condition, and there are some of the arguments of that book I will never recover from.

Part of The Human Condition is a commentary on the predicament of modernisation. When Modern Architecture – A Critical History was published in 1980, the Czech architectural theorist Dalibor Vesely recommended me an essay by Paul Ricoeur, ”Universal Civilisation and National Cultures”, which to a certain extent is a discussion about the identity of decolonialised nations, but which actually also speaks of the predicament that even the nations of the so-called first world find themselves in. Ricoeur defines universal civilisation as universal technology, whereas national cultures are something that you can think of as more emotional and rooted in language, poetry and everyday life. There is an uncomfortable relationship between these two things, a tension.

And in view of the way you introduced your problem here in Norway, I would say that one of the reactions, at a psychological level, to the modernisation of societies, is to deal with the problem of psychological security by trying to pretend nothing has happened. So if you think of American suburbs for example, what is the average American suburban house – or English for that matter – there is something about the form, the pitched roof and so on, which participate in the fiction that we are still agricultural people. People feel comfortable with this iconography. And one could argue that in order to sustain some kind of psychological security, ordinary people – and bureaucrats on the part of ordinary people – feel that it is necessary that these icons should be somehow sustained, even if it just means a pitched roof instead of a flat one, reducing the whole thing to one simple sign or figure.

This is why I think the most important architect of the 20th century, in terms of the 21st century, is still Alvar Aalto. Because I think he is one of the very few architects who have been able to build a model world, in a way, but at the same time to provide a certain level of security for ordinary people, through his use of form and material.

"There is something about the form of the average suburban housa, the pitched roof and so on, that participates in the fiction that we are still agricultural people."

Einar Bjarki Malmquist: In your essay “On Reading Heidegger” from 1974, you seem to be introducing another definition of place, based on tectonics and on the actual production, the making of a building. In terms of our discussion about the value of a sense of place, how would you speak about place differently?

KF: Well, in the last two or three years I have become more and more preoccupied with landscape, and with topography. Polemically, I am against the idea of the building as a freestanding object. And the question of place, then, becomes a question of how the built form is integrated with the ground, with the topos.

In terms of Gottfried Semper’s four basic elements of architecture: the hearth, the earthwork, the framework/roof, and the enclosing membrane, I think that the earthwork is fundamental, maybe more so than the roofwork. And it's curious in a way that the building regulations should put such an aesthetic emphasis on the roof, because the earthworks are more important, I think, from the point of view of place.

IHA: How does your interest in earthwork translate to an urban condition?

KF: It’s always present. We always have to put the building into the ground. And the question of how the ground is treated, and how you pass from the existing ground to the new ground of the building is always a very sensitive aspect. I think one of the tragic things about modernisation is that there is a very strong effort to turn building into a commodity. And of course the freestanding object is already moving towards its own commodification. The object that is integrated into the ground has the capacity to resist that commodification. And I think that would apply whether it’s inside the city or outside the city, although it can be more dramatic in a natural landscape.

Another important thing is the experience of the body. We live in a modern world, with its emphasis on images, of course, which has a tendency to make people rather insensitive to other aspects, but the experience of a building on a tactile level is perhaps even more important that the visual.

"One of the tragic things about modernisation is the strong effort to turn building into a commodity. But the object that is integrated into the ground has the capacity to resist that commodification."

IHA: Going back to that sense of security that was your explanation of our municipal guidelines... Is this common physical experience, the phenomenological level of architecture, a way to replace or develop this image of security that the pitched roof provides? Do you think that if this phenomenological level of experience was made more explicit, more available, that it could be a way for architects to communicate with the general public?

KF: I think so. I think one of the predicaments for architects today is the uncomfortable opposition between kitsch, on the one hand, and a kind of neo-avant-gardism on the other. In my opinion they are both negative. Neo-avant-gardism is like an endless striving for originality that affords no references to ordinary people. And on the other hand, reducing the laws of aesthetics into whether there’s a pitched roof or not, tends towards kitsch: You are just looking for the cheap signs that you can sell people. These positions are almost polar opposites.

And in schools of architecture this issue is never discussed. The problem is how to make housing, for example, which would be accessible to a generalised middle class identity and not be kitsch. And why middle class identity? Because all these people that we now talk about in terms of multi-culturalism, are ultimately – because of our mediatic society, because of modernisation, and because of television – they are programmed to become middle class. What else are they programmed to become? So even if the parents were born in Pakistan, the children aspire to be middle class Norwegians, if this is where they are. And then the problem for architects is: How can you create a middle class environment that is not kitsch? That is modern, but not kitsch?

"The problem for architects is: How can you create a middle class environment that is not kitsch? That is modern, but not kitsch?"

But it is one of the things of the modern world, that human beings are able to put up with a great deal of schizophrenia. In some areas of their life they want reassurance, in another area they want surprise. An average western living room contains both antiques and the latest in electronics. Humans are split figures… Which takes us back to the issue of security, because I think this split is at a subliminal level, that people are unconscious of this schism, and their search for reassurance is a way of overcoming it.

IHA: You think this schism is actually that uncomfortable to people? Are they not simply happy to live with it? Does the experience of holding a ceramic cup in one hand and a mobile phone in the other actually cause that much pain?

KF: Well, it is unconscious of course, but at a subliminal level I think people are looking for reassurance. If you think of – well, we’re of course getting into politics rather heavily here...

IHA: Yes, let’s get into politics.

KF: If you take the Oscars for example, and the business world of Hollywood... Well, it may be different here in Norway where at least some people are very wealthy...

IHA: In a global context, we are pretty much all very wealthy.

KF: Yes. But even here, when it comes to distribution if wealth, there are problems.

IHA: Yes.

KF: But anyway, the Oscars and Hollywood provide dream worlds that enable people to suffer their difficult lives, or sustain themselves in relation to their difficulties. A very interesting writer, Thomas Frank, wrote a book after Bush was elected the second time, called What’s the matter with Kansas?. Kansas is a very impoverished state, yet they voted for the Republican Party. And why did these people vote for this party which is so manifestly the government of the super-rich – the Republican party pretends to care about other people, but it has no real interest. It’s really very tragic and ironic, and what does it mean? That this government really stands for the future of the United States?

EBM: Norway is a rich country where people are taken good care of by a highly developed welfare state… Couldn’t you imagine that this strong sense of public obligation would show in architecture? That it would at least affect the programming of architecture?

KF: Referring to my earlier point about reaching the middle class: It comes back to the same thing, the kitsch or the new avant-garde; at both extremes buildings are treated as trademarks. The spectacular buildings of Frank Gehry or Rem Kolhaas, the new avant-garde, or the kitsch of New Urbanism, for example. They are two poles. It is almost as though they are two functions, in late capitalist consumerist societies, as if these two ends of the scale are performing two different ideological roles.

It is not so easy to raise the consciousness in architecture schools about this, as long as you shy away from exposing the hidden political dimension. There is a tendency not to talk about such issues; it’s associated with a degree of discomfort.

IHA: It is strange how certain things are excluded from the common level of discourse – there’s sex of course, and money – but it is strange that the discussion of issues that have political implications seem to embarrass people.KF: It is a kind of repression, unconsciously absorbed repression. What else is it? It’s as though people feel if the discussion goes in the direction of politics it will lead to conflict...

But it is not all a question of politics. I think the really complex work of architecture ought to have more than one level to it, ought to be able to deal with this question of reflecting a certain identity, without reducing things to just that. But the aesthetic regulations of the building code are by definition reductive. You have to have a pitched roof – you can do what the hell you like with the rest, but you have to have a pitched roof – that is by definition reductive.

IHA: But conceiving and realising this multi-levelled work or architecture – is that a question of personal talent? Or is there something you can do in schools of architecture that can give architecture in general a richer background of reference?

KF: I think there are things you can do in schools of architecture, but you have to really work at it. I think there is a lot of architectural theory today that has a somewhat obscurantist effect… And then there is the other theory that is ultra-technological, that would reduce things to the universal civilisation, to quote Ricoeur again. Typical of that is the current trend for digitalised draughting, and digitalised generation of form. A thought that occurs to me is that this is also an effort for part of architecture trying to legitimise itself on the back of technology, similar to the modular rationalised prefabricated production in the 1960’s for example. Technology is a way of legitimising the profession.

"Digitized draughting is an effort for part of architecture to try to legitimise itself on the back of technology – similar to the rationalised prefabricated production of the 1960’s."

IHA: Going on from Ricoeurs essay “Universal Civilisation and National Cultures”, you have often brought up the issue of resistance to a Universal Civilisation, and you quote Ricoeur saying that one of the resources a national culture needs is independent funds. A nation that is financially dependent on another nation will never be able to assert its own cultural identity. Norway is a very rich country, but I think it is up for discussion whether we are culturally assertive – the influence of Anglo-American culture, for example, is very obvious throughout the last half of the 20th century. The building industry, for example, is very standardised and dominated by internationally available products. And on the other hand, if you look at how Norway is marketed as a tourist product, for example, it is clear public culture has tended towards a very traditionalist image – kitsch, in your terms. Clearly, money is not enough. So what else do you need in order to resist universal pressures? There is always a temptation amongst architects to think that if you just have enough money, you can get quality in architecture. That if you can pay for polished plaster and solid brass and Japanese quality concrete, you will achieve tectonic quality. But what else does it take?

KF: A key word here is maximisation. I have increasingly felt that architecture has to face up to the question of sustainability, of ecology, of the embodied energy of building materials on one side, and on the other side there is this pressure of the maximisation of technology. But I think the very word maximisation is a problem. In the end, or course, it’s often a veil for maximisation of profit. There are many aspects to this; you could say maximisation of suburbanisation, even, is a problem.

IHA: So having enough is not enough?

KF: No, the question of our relationship to nature is, I think, fundamental. The attitude of the species, the attitude of the talking animal towards nature has always tended to the maximal exploitation of natural resources. But it is clear that nature is going to win this game in the end. It already is reacting.

"The attitude of the human species towards nature has always tended to the maximal exploitation of natural resources. But it is clear that nature is going to win this game in the end."

IHA: It’s interesting that you say that nature will win: Many environmentalists would say the opposite, that nature is losing, being destroyed.

KF: But of course. Nature is losing in a sense, but the human species will not do well when nature starts to react. And in that sense the earth will have the last word, let’s put it that way.

EBM: Many architects and engineers seem to hope that the future of sustainability rests in hi-tech technology, that more advanced, better systems will allow us to retain our level of consumption.

IHA: But you are arguing for a kind of cultural self-restraint?

KF: Yes, and for a more complex attitude towards nature, or towards the interface between nature and culture.
Technology is not enough. You cannot legislate one maximised solution – certain insulation criteria, thicknesses of windows, maximum glazing areas etc. – it may allow us to go on living and building the way we do, but as it’s based on a certain maximised technical solution it will become problematic.

Sometimes I say to students that building culture is anachronistic, and that’s its big strength. When you dig a hole in the ground, and when you put a building into that hole, there are no refined systems at play. The ground is a mess; you have to use wet material, concrete... It’s as primitive as putting a building into the ground during the Roman Empire. And I think that the coexistence of different technologies in architecture gives a message that certain techniques, very old techniques, are still available to us, you don’t necessarily only have to use the latest inventions. We are victims of an ideology of technology, as opposed to being able to choose, on cultural grounds, why one should use this solution and not that. Without excluding the advantages of refined technology, I think that one has to have a more discursive attitude towards the choices one makes in building.

"We are victims of an ideology of technology."

IHA: In several of your recent essays, you place a great deal of responsibility for architecture on the client. In Norway at least, architects often feel very alone in trying to fight for quality against the windmills of building finance for example. At the same time, current practice and contractual conditions have meant that the design and production of a building is actually a collaborative effort. Would a higher level of general public discourse on architecture and planning be an advantage?

KF: The paradox is that architecture gets more media exposure now than it used to get. The spectacular side of architecture gets a lot of attention. But I don’t have an answer to your question about public discourse. Perhaps it’s a question of the general level of education about the environment in general, and the built environment in particular. This ought to be part of national educational policy.

IHA: If you extended that imaginary architectural curriculum to take in the environment as a whole, rather than just the built environment, that could potentially ignite a completely different public interest in architecture. “Environment”, rather than ”built environment”, is a term that is already deeply rooted in public discourse. That angle could give architecture, and architects, a new and different public role, if they were willing and able to take it.

EBM: So the angle of the question is: Is there any mission left for architects in the modern world? Is your idea of resistance the architects’ mission?

KF: This also has a political dimension. Even if it might be somewhat quixotic, I’m someone who thinks that even though it was a totalitarian state, the collapse of the Soviet Union was some kind of a disaster. Not for the Russians, but because it meant the triumph of global capitalism.

IHA: Well, it means there are no alternatives left.

KF: No alternatives. There is no ”other”. I think that is very negative for the current historical situation. And perhaps only by stressing the complexity of things, the complexity of the relationship between nature and culture, can we move on from here. The question of the environment, is already becoming equally quixotic, in that there seems to be overwhelming evidence that if things don’t change in the next ten years, or five years even, the so-called tipping point will be reached; in which case, if one believes the scientists, the ice caps are going to melt, and the consequences are beyond belief. The water levels will rise, and a lot of coastal property will be under water.

And in that sense, with reference to our earlier points about ordinary people and the need for unconscious suppression of certain incongruent things, I think people really don’t want to know. The topic surfaces from time to time in the newspapers and so on, but no one knows what to do about it.

You think that at some point people will be forced to do something, even if it’s a bit late, and then maybe the political climate will change. Because the idea that one can go on consuming at the rate of today’s western societies is a fallacy. And perhaps some kind of collective awareness will eventually manifest itself. This is where architecture, if it had already developed the tools to deal with the problem at the necessary level of complexity, could really present an avant-garde.

Glenn Murcutt: I first met Sverre Fehn in Oslo in 1987, on the 24th April. I remember because it was the day before a national holiday in Austra­lia, and it was 25 degrees in Oslo, very warm for that time of year, and everyone was out catching the sun, people were all white as lilies. I was doing a lecture at OAF, and Fehn was there, and afterwards he spoke to a young architect, Gitte von ­Ubisch, who took me to the Hamar museum the following day. Fehn himself couldn’t come, and actually the museum was closed, but they called and got them to open up for us. I didn’t know the project beforehand.

And I was bowled over. It was the most significant architectural experience of my life until then. And I was 51 years old at the time. Afterwards I have been there many times. I got to know Sverre and Ingrid, they invited me to their home, and I had the chance to visit more of his projects.
Fehn was a man of his land. A man of immense integrity. An emotional, deter­mined, upright human being. His architecture is some of the most sublime and powerful work of the 20th century. To me he is one of the very few greats, perhaps the most important man in my world of architects. Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto were of course remarkable, but Fehn had a connection to place, materials, light, history – all synthesised into an architecture that belongs to where it is. There are lessons in his work to be learned for generations to come, once we get over this stupid period of too much money and too many silly works. Fehn’s architecture belongs to a world of architecture outside the world of ’isms. He was rooted in his land, as a thinker and as a practitioner – he understood place, technology and an appropriate architecture of our time. He was a proud Norwegian man.

He never came to Australia – we were friends, and I invited him of course, but by then he was 69 years old, he didn’t like air travel that much anyway, and he had a lot on his mind... This was at the turbulent time of the Copenhagen project. But I came to Norway many times, and joined him for dinner, or at the office. Talked.

IHA: What did you talk about?

GM: About our common respect for Jørn Utzon. About materials. About his background, his pride in his viking heritage. Trips and adventures. And the tough times of his career. He told me that there had been a matron who severely and publically criticised one of his early projects in the press, and he said that the article actually devastated his career. And he maintained that such bad press caused him to not build anything for 19 years.

IHA: Did you talk about nature?

GM: All the time. “The Nature”, he called it. And about the Norwegian royal family, how marvellous they had been during the war, when they gave over the palace grounds so people could grow food. We talked about how nature informs us.

IHA: You were both in different ways in the forefront of a new sensibility about natural conditions, even if Fehn was never expressly focused on environmental concerns. Did you feel yourselves in opposition to the times?

GM: We were concerned with orientation, materials, light, space, planning strategies, structure and more – we thought that form should be a consequence of all these things, not an “event”. And we were fiercely oppo­sed to Post-modernism. So in a sense we pedalled down the back streets of architecture, and let the rest of the lemmings all fall into their own soup. I really think Post-modernism set architecture back 25 years. I am still staggered by how many of my colleagues at the time joined that lemming fraternity.

IHA: To my mind, a postitive aspect of Post-modernism was that it allowed the definition of a number of radically different positions in architecture, outside the hegemony of international modernism.

GM: The problems arise with the practitioners of these isms. People get lazy.

IHA: I think you could even say that Fehn’s work, despite the fact that it is often understood as a poetic extension of modernism, actually can be regarded as a Norwegian contribution to Post-modernism. A way out, so to speak. When you look at a project like the Glacier Museum, for example, it is a figurative project. The building mimics the glacier, almost with­out abstraction.

GM: That’s true. There is something folksy about parts of that project. There is something a bit noddy about that circular element at the end, something quaint.

IHA: A touch of romanticism perhaps?

GM: Yes. I think that is correct. Fehn’s work combines the romantic, the poetic and the rational. It is a junction of the poetic and the rational, but in that it rises to the very highest levels.

“Fehn’s work combines the rom­antic, the poetic and the rational. It is a junction of the poetic and the rational, but in that it rises to the very highest levels.”

IHA: What was it that so bowled you over when you first went to Hamar?

GM: History. His very direct understanding of history. The Hamar museum is very modern, even if he is working with old remains. The building clarifies differences, the old and the new, most beautifully and with great sensitivity. He was a kind of Norwegian Carlo Scarpa, but not so ”navel­gazing”. Tougher, honest, more direct. The way he combined concrete and stone, brought light into the old building, stretch­ed a ramped pathway over the exposed ruins and through the building. His choice and use of timeless materials – tile, steel, concrete, exposed structural timbers and timber sidings, and the natural colours of those materials.

We love what’s in us. The qualities in another’s work that embodies our own values and thinking. Through the work of others we recognize what we are. Fehn and I had a way of thinking and working that were not so far apart. I actually loved the man and his mind – we were ”birds of a feather”.

From Glenn Murcutt’s journal, April 1989.

12/4/89, Wednesday.
“Discovered the geography of Oslo city by foot – a great way to get around and exercise but it is still raining lightly. Spring is here, the bluebells, crocuses, daffodils are all up and just in flower with all trees budding and leafing.
… Gitte met me 12.30 and we left for a drive to (Hamor?) to visit a museum designed by Norway’s great architect Fehn. Gitte von Ubisch – did the trip by car alongside the lake; – was beautiful – the landscape and villages are very beautiful with some snow lying about still. The weather damp (8oC) but comfortable. 3½-4 hr drive brought us to one of the most unexpected and also one of the great experiences in visiting a master’s work, and I did not know it existed. A museum within a very old barn, done in the most beautifully detailed timberwork, concrete, glass and Scarpa-equal exhibit design. This is a great work by a master – I wish to meet this man – what a joyous experience to be in such manmade work. The staff were equally good in opening up especially for my visit. … I cannot believe how good this work is. It is of the Utzon, Aalto quality, extraordinary! So uplifting to know it is being done. Heard that he is not properly appreciated in Norway and has little work but is a brilliant teacher. Running late now for dinner where I meet the OAF board at 8.00 pm.”

13/4/89, Thursday.
“… Returned for selection of slides for talk – taking 2.30-7.30 to do the selection – I must get better organised. And the sun is here, just great.
Talk received way beyond all expectations, incredible enthusiasm. I met Sverre Fehn who designed museum at Hamar + the two young Norwegian architects who designed the leper’s community in India. What a marvellous evening this has been. I am just so impressed with these 3 men as people and as architects. Received book from OAF of Fehn’s work which he signed and received me so warmly saying ”We are one in our work” – this is such an unexpected response from this nation’s living national treasure. Finished evening with celebration of talk – Astri [Thån, ed.] who introduced me said that it was not only by far the most attended talk but most enthusiastically received.”

15/4/89, Saturday.
“… Arrived on time at Oslo central station [after trip to Trondheim, ed.]. It is beautifully warm today. Met by Astri, taxi to hotel to drop off luggage, walked to the opening of an exhibition of Utzon’s work by Sverre Fehn. Met again Sverre, this marvellous 65 yr old Norwegian architect. He invited me home for a light meal. His wife is also a beautiful person, musician, teacher and living in a house designed in 1924-28 by Arne Korsmo. It is a very good modern house. Sverre showed me the design of a new house nearing completion – it looks marvellous [Villa Busk, ed.]. He will take me to the finished work when I return. The client, he says, is special. What a most wonderful pair both Sverre and Ingrid are. Left by taxi to hotel, repacked slides (2 hrs) – and Norway is over – unfortunately!”

An interview with Per Olaf Fjeld on the words of Sverre Fehntag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/people-stories/fjeld-on-fehn-09/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Per Olaf Fjeld greets me at the door of his office, shutting the door on the cold October night. Twelve years have passed since he was my teacher at the Oslo School of Architecture. The place where I studied was impregnated with the spirit of a retired professor, with faded chalk sketches that no one removed from old blackboards, with stories told and retold, full of unverified quotes. Fehn was part of the fabric of the Oslo School of Architecture.

Per Olaf is enthusiastically present. We chat about how many young architects seem to be setting up new practices these days, and about how happy he is about the positive reception of his latest book, Sverre Fehn: The Pattern of Thoughts. Last time he collected notes from lectures and from conversations with Fehn and made it into a book, was in 1983. Sverre Fehn: The Thought of Construction was a book where the voices of Fehn and Fjeld fused together in one text, and you never really knew who had thought or said what. The new book takes on almost the opposite form: Fehn’s words have been separated out in a different typeface and are supplemented by, commented on and interrupted by Per Olaf Fjeld’s overall story of his friend, boss and colleague.

–It is a really important piece of work, I say.

–Well, it took four years, Per Olaf smiles.

Sverre Fehn wrote almost nothing himself. Words and stories have been noted and collected by others. Fehn was quoted at crits and juries, and I have seen his sketches repeated by other teachers. And his fantastic nouns, familiar words that are used so rarely that you can’t even find them in the cellphone autotext lists. Cloud. Turban. Cave. Boat builder. And then the words that are so basic that you are almost embarrassed to say them: the sky, the earth, the sea. Per Olaf has heard them more often than anyone else.

Tanja Lie: What did these words mean?

Per Olaf Fjeld: Sverre Fehn was concerned with the simple things. Particularly in the early years of his career: the ruin and the horizon, light and shadow. He tried to seek out the essentials of the relationship between nature and culture. This was also how his architecture emerged. His basis was a few very simple concepts, which became the starting points of architecture. Complexity only appeared when these simple things were put together. He was an extraordinary observer and could capture the finest detail in a meeting of people, in a situation in a cowboy movie, in an everyday occurrence which momentarily caught his interest, or a particular sentence he read in a book – he could go around tumbling that sentence in his mind a whole summer, transported by it. A word could be a recoil to a further movement, approaching architecture.

TL: Not all his words are simple or basic; he also had a lot of exotic words: The contortionist, the flying carpet, the tattoo?

POF: He was fascinated both by the animal trainer and the contortionist – the contortionist who captured a spatial condition in his continuous movements. Aladdin’s flying carpet communicated the ability architecture has to move the horizon.

The tattoo is about adding a new layer, for him the rock carving was a tattoo on the earth. And Fehn was genuinely interested in the object: Architecture is not only about human beings and space; it is also about the object. This is clear in his exhibition projects, in how the objects are cared for and assigned to their spaces, like in the Hedmark Museum. But the object is just as much present in his single-family houses. The best example is the Norrköping House, where there is a direct interplay between the everyday objects and the surrounding space. And between the inhabitant and the objects. The table is there, the bed, and the chair. They have their place. They cannot simply be replaced, the house is not free.

TL: So you have to come there without any luggage?

POF: Yes, and this is where the economy, or the energy efficiency, of his architecture resides. You cannot just fill the house with new things, the house rejects the mediocre, and the kitchen has no need to follow the latest fashion.

TL: But isn’t that a very dictatorial form of architecture? Where life has been set up for you, and all the props are in place?

POF: No, on the contrary, the house is generous. You can use your time and energy on everything else.

TL: Can the stories that accompany all his buildings also be limiting for the understanding of a project? When Fehn talks about how the fisherman finds the mast structure of the Honningsvåg Church deeply familiar, then what is left for all us non-fishermen?

POF: I don’t think the stories cement any particular understanding of the projects. We are talking about a creative process where a word could spark an entire project, in contrast to the narratives and stories that often appeared years later.

“We are talking about a creative process where a word could spark an entire project, in contrast to the narratives and stories that often appeared years later.”

All the conversations with Palladio, for example, were created years after the Norrköping House. Remember, he was never a writer, never a historian or a poet – he was an architect, and everything that happened to him was a potential springboard for architecture. It is a great shame that he was never able to try out more of his stories. But he had no talent for compromise – that was never in him. So that’s how it was. But it was the sketches that got the thoughts started, and from the sketches came the stories…

Per Olaf turns over a sheet of my notes, and with a turquoise fountain pen he retraces one of Sverre Fehn’s sketches from memory, a quick little piece of architectural history.

POF: Man has moved into the cave. The animal stands outside, and it is sad, because it has been robbed of its cave. Later, the cave man moves out and transforms nature into culture; he shapes the rock into a block of stone. The stone gives him a dimension with which to build. With the block comes architecture.

TL: At university, and other institutions of higher education, you are drilled in the building of a rational argument. At the School of Architecture, however, I felt you were at times encouraged to cultivate ambiguity, to pursue the obscure. Statements were left unopposed, teachers could leave their conclusions unsaid, hints were left hanging in the air. Was this institutional ambiguity part of Sverre Fehn’s legacy?

POF: Sverre himself was never ambiguous, but not all his sentences had an intended result. He did not believe that knowledge should be taught, it had to be the result of experience. Knowledge was something each person had to acquire and grasp in his or her own way. He talked about what he himself was doing through the themes he was concerned with. He could lecture on the cut in the ground, on the thief, the tightrope walker, death and idleness – and the delivery became important, in his humour lay his gravity, and he always seemed focused and engaged. But everything that he spoke of, had to be transformed within the listener. This was a form of teaching that suited some people, but not everyone.

“Sverre himself was never ambiguous, but not all his sentences had an intended result. He did not believe that knowledge should be taught, it had to be the result of experience.”

TL: Fehn is quoted in your book: “In my friendship with Utzon I met a constructor. He thought in construction. I think more in stories, in content.” But surely the great strength of the Oslo school, if you can say that, has always been to regard the structure as the bearer of the architectonic idea?

POF: The structure was the most important thing to Sverre. He saw structure in most things. But not in a technological way, he didn’t necessarily strive to maximise structural efficiency. His year with Jean Prouvé had not affected him in that way. What concerned him was finding the right relationship between space, light and shadow. There were two types of stories: the reflections that came after, which I already mentioned, and then the words or trains of thought that were active parts of the creative process.

We often talked about the first step in the development of an architectonic project. You had to see the site, the context, but then it had to rest. The architecture had to develop a character of its own before it met the site again – at that point the site had matured, the thoughts had gained a distance and a fresh discussion could begin. Architecture was created from an impression of the site. We developed a word for it, for the atmosphere or the feeling of a project that you have in your head before anything is put down on paper: Room picture. For Sverre, this room picture was clear before he sat down to discuss anything with the people in the office. Then he could sit down, in a dialogue with his team, and try to capture this room picture. Only then could you use all the tools, the sketch, the model. Tore Kleven, Tom Wike and Henrik Hille were important sparring partners in this, as well as Jon Kåre Schulz. You sat around and drew and talked and moved the room picture towards a proposal for a structure. New stories emerged: of how the columns populated the space, and of the one word that could push a detail further. Details were given names; the projects could be given nicknames.

From there, things got tighter and tighter, the project was more and more defined, until it was finally entirely defined in the working drawings. But in this last phase, the world opened up again. When the team went to find the products, they asked: What kinds of roof tile is available, what kinds of hinge – what is the best hinge in the entire world? The office poured enormous resources into establishing what might distinguish different types of hinges, what qualities the different makers could provide. They never gave up.

TL: You talk about objects as if they had human traits and a will of their own, as if they were animate. The site has to rest. The columns congregate. Was this also the case for each house, that they were thought of as different characters?

POF: There was a great change in 1989, the year that Sverre spent with John Hejduk in New York. New words were added all the time, and the mask was added to his vocabulary. A new layer was added to the architecture; the architectonic mask, which made use of an identity that was added to the structure.

For Sverre, this added layer became increasingly important to him. We were driving towards Alvdal, to check on progress in the construction of the Aukrust Centre. We drove through endless forests. He said that as he got older, the inner layer, closest to the skin, was getting increasingly important: the silk shirt, the thin pyjamas. You can see this clearly in his projects. You see it in the brick house he designed for the housing exhibition in Lommedalen. The house has an expression, something which is added. It is no longer just the structure that creates the form, but something which is an additional layer.

TL: So the house itself becomes a figure?

POF: The Glacier Museum is a figure, a constructed spatial object that makes use of its form as a mask to make contact with nature. And then, one day, that mask is too tight, and the word can no longer fill the thought. In the Gyldendal House and the Architecture Museum he has left the mask behind, and again it is the structure and the daylight that creates the space.

TL: In the introduction to your book you describe his colleagues giving Sverre Fehn a present on his 84th birthday: a gigantic new book about Corbusier. Fehn cheerfully remarks that the next book to be published on Le Corbusier will be so big that it will have to be carried sideways in the door. It seems that you had some good conversations with him, even the last ones?

POF: For Emily and me, on a personal level, the conversations continue, and new words are being added. To Sverre, everything was alive. And therefore all the words we have exchanged, together, will always be alive.

An interview with Juhani Pallasmaatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/stories/people-stories/pallasmaa-09/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Einar Bjarki Malmquist: I remember your lecture at the conference "Reconciling Poetics and Ethics in Architecture" in Montreal in 2007, about "Artistic Generosity, Humility and Expression", where you compared your own ideas with the thoughts of several artists, poets and philosophers through history. Amongst many other things, you said something like: "No profound artist or architect of any time would be self-centered enough to see his or her art as self-expression". This brings me to ask: Do you see the architect and the artist as having similar roles in society?

Juhani Pallasmaa: The artist’s and the architect’s roles in the society are both similar and different. They are similar in the sense that all artforms are fundamentally existential expressions, i.e. art expresses the human condition and existential experience. They structure our experience of the world, and finally turn our attention to ourselves.

The fundamental difference of art and architecture arises from the fact that art is the experience itself, whereas architecture provides a horizon, or frame for our lived experiences. Art can choose its subject matter and emotional tone, whereas architecture is expected to be supportive and “life-enhancing”, to use a notion of Bernard Behrenson.

Regardless of this indisputably positive stance, architecture can also deal with such emotions as sorrow, melancholia, and death. Michelangelo’s architecture, for instance, is an architecture of melancholy, whereas Sigurd Lewerentz takes us to the boundary line of life itself, however, without a sense of fear. Both move me to tears.

"Architecture can also deal with such emotions as sorrow, melancholia, and death. Michelangelo’s architecture, for instance, is an architecture of melancholy."

EBM: Architectural magazines often present architects as if they were rock-stars. Many prestigious city planning projects, for example, have involved so called starchitects and their “gestures” in order to gain visibility on the global stage. You have spoken about the fact that architecture is a "low impact art", very unlike the rock concert, and about the alienating effects of the computer generated structures that have been appearing around the world. What do you think are the biggest challenges these issues pose for contemporary architecture?

JP: In my view, it is a misunderstanding to conceive architecture that competes for our attention and attempts to shock us through powerful imagery. In its very essence architecture is a background phenomenon, in the sense of creating a ground for perceptions, experiences and emotions. The power of architecture is in its perpetual presence and role as a horizon of reference, as well as in the persistence and authority of its voiceless voice.
I see as the task of architecture as being to defend the autonomy of human experience, not to condition, dominate or dictate our experiences and feelings. In a time when everything is turning into meaningless information, diversion, and entertainment, architecture needs to create and maintain meaning of space and place, and give us our foothold in the lived reality. It needs to articulate our experiences of gravity and flight, light and shadow, silence and solitude.

"I see as the task of architecture as being to defend the autonomy of human experience, not to condition, dominate or dictate our experiences and feelings."

EBM: Since the middle of the 2000's, writers in the field of architecture have claimed that architecture, and the human civilization in general, would move rapidly towards more sustainable forms of living. But it is obvious that we still have a long way to go. What are the most demanding issues architecture faces in relation to sustainability?

JP: Architecture can hardly be meaningfully sustainable without being grounded in a sustainable lifestyle and sustainable values. At the moment we are witnessing the collapse of the economic system of our consumerist culture, a system based on perpetual growth. But even this very grave situation has not made a single major politician or economist doubt the fundamental, and ultimately suicidal, values on which we still base our civilization.

We need a new attitude towards life, and the fantastic multiplicity and complexity of nature, as the ground for a sustainable future. And as architects, we need to see the ethical dimension that is intertwined with aesthetic quality, and most important of all, we need a sense of humility.

"As architects, we need to see the ethical dimension that is intertwined with aesthetic quality."

EBM: “Fragile architecture” is a theme of yours. Do you see that theme related to ideas about sustainable culture?

JP: By “fragile architecture” I suggest an architectural parallel to Gianni Vattimo’s “weak thought”, which he introduced in The End of Modernity (1985). My view of fragile architecture aims at an architecture that is responsive, multi-thematic, inclusive and courteous instead of being a demonstration of human will and technical knowledge, formally exclusive and arrogant. The best of Nordic architecture is “fragile” in this sense. The concept of fragility goes naturally with an ecological sensibility.

I believe that we are entering an era of biological wisdom, and I suggest that we architects try to be in the frontline of this development.

An interview with Anne Engertag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/stories/people-stories/enger-on-opera-08/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

One of the many important contributors to the story of the new opera house is Anne Enger, former leader of the Centre Party and Minister of Culture 1997-1999. The decision to build an opera house was voted through Parliament during her time in office, and Arkitektur N asked: How did it come to be, and why is it built where it is?

"The Centre government headed by prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik that came to power after the general election in 1997, after the Norwegians had voted no to EU-membership and the defeat of the Labour Party, was a small miracle," says Anne Enger. "That’s where it started. The Christian Democratic Party had done well in the elections and Bondevik became Prime Minister. The Centre Party came second; I was party leader and could in effect choose any office.

I chose the Ministry of Culture. Why? I have always been interested in supporting and developing some of the countering forces in society, and for me culture is one of the conduits of those forces. That’s why I chose that department. I was determined to make the opera happen – and in the governmental declaration for that coalition government we negotiated a commitment to an Opera Report, meaning a Report concerning an opera house. The aim was a building. From there you could develop opera and ballet further as art forms.

"It was individual enthusiasts – former minister Lars Roar Langslet, opera manager Bjørn Simensen and others – who had the first idea of a new building. Strong cultural personalities and certain politicians, combined with a strong professional lobby at the opera and their ­audience, the opera lovers. You might say that opera is an elitist art form. But Norway is supposed to be a nation of culture, and particularly in a time flush with money from oil I thought we have to be able to realise a cultural building like this. Any cultural nation has to have a proper opera house.

"When you enter a ministry as a new minister, all sheets are actually blank. But the civil service threw themselves into the task at hand, and I was able to give it political weight. So instead of a Report we proposed a Bill in June 1998. In this Bill, three locations were considered for a new opera house: Vestbanen, the site including the protected decommissioned railway station, state owned and ready for development; Bjørvika, where both ownership and ground conditions were unclear, and redeve­lopment of the existing Youngstorget premises. Our conclusion in the Bill was Vestbanen.

"The debate showed a clear majority for a new opera house, but no agreement on the location."

"In June 1998 Parliament debated the Bill. It was a real downer. The debate showed a clear majority for a new opera house, but no agreement on the location. In the ministry, we were not really prepared to consider anything else than Vestbanen at the time. The Labour Party and the Socialist Left wanted to place the building in Bjørvika, whilst the Conservative Party and the centre coalition wanted it to go to Vestbanen. The Bjørvika alternative was only possible with a new traffic solution with a price tag of 2,8 billion kroner, as well as a more expensive building and the unclear ownership and ground conditions. This made the building of an opera house dependent on a host of other considerations. So the opera enthusiasts wanted the Vestbanen location, whilst the main motivation behind Bjørvika was to speed up urban development.

"But then the Bill wasn’t passed. The next day I went down to the opera, to meet with all the enthusiasts. I had no intention of giving up, but I was anxious as I walked up the grand stair – after all, it hadn’t been passed. But I was greeted with open arms, and the warm reception made me even more determined to see this through. Within a week, the ministry had started work on a new Bill.

"The solution was found in the fact that there was a majority in Parliament in favour of an opera house, even if we couldn’t agree where it should be. So we assembled an interdepartmental working group with representatives of seven or eight ministries. In their meetings, this group extracted a new possibility: The key was to be found in what I called a “footprint master plan”, which limited the project to just the one site in Bjørvika, making it independent of the planning of the rest of the urban development in that area and of the complicated traffic situation. And so we presented Parliament with a new Bill. Two Bills within a year, that is an achievement in itself! We proposed the Vestbanen site again, but this time we also proposed a subsidiary site in Bjørvika. This was the solution; it finally gave a majority for the Bill in June 1999. Without this detour there would have been no majority. And I will be bold enough to suggest that the Labour Party would never have proposed Bjørvika themselves, even if they had been in office. We could never have gained a majority for Vestbanen. The Centre Party would never have supported Bjørvika as a main alternative, but we could agree to it as a subsidiary alternative based on that limited “footprint planning”. It was simply a clever bit of political craftsmanship, with good professional input and the help of some strong supporters. But it was a bold move to pass it. There were many unknown factors in the project.

IHA/EBM: Is it common to assemble inter-ministerial groups like in this case?

AE: Yes, it is quite common. But the timing, and the broad approach, the pressure and the will to find a solution were particular to this group.

Architecture as a political showcase

IHA/EBM: There are many examples around the world of buildings that are both located and designed for political reasons, both by political groups and by single politicians. From the Great Pyramid of Cheops to for example the social housing construction in Vienna in the 1980’s and -90’s, where the mayor’s name was engraved on a brass plaque hanging next to the front entrance to every new building project, making architectonic innovation a symbol of political determination and a manifest ability to act. But there are no Norwegian politicians who have made a point of a personal association with the new opera house? Perhaps that was never possible, as the project spanned several governments?

AE: As a politician, you have to lift the building beyond your own thoughts. But of course – when the building was finished, I said to ­Bondevik: “This is the work of our Centre government!” But we could never have done it alone.

IHA/EBM: So you took the responsibility, but not the credit? Despite the fact that you had actually found quite unusual ways of doing things, and maybe didn’t have to be quite so modest?

AE: Perhaps not. But the mechanisms here in Norway are a bit different than in other areas of the world. My view is that I have contributed during my lap of the relay. But there are many other crucial contributions, and it would be wrong of me to suddenly appear now and claim that I did it. And it would have been very uncharacteristic for a Norwegian…

AE: Firstly, it may be the case that the authorities in most parts of this country are not really aware of the real importance of a splendid building. There is a tendency to ask: “Shouldn’t we rather be building nursing homes?” Also, we don’t really have a very conscious relation to the connections between architecture and politics. There is no great awareness of the fact that architecture is one of the building blocks of society. Secondly, politics is also about individuals, and any need they may have to associate themselves with prestigious projects is up to them. And it is a fact that the credit for the realisation of this project goes to a lot of people. Opera manager Bjørn Simensen, Odd Einar Dørum of the Liberal Party, Kjell Magne Bondevik, my successors as Ministers of Culture Valgerd Svarstad Haugland and Trond Giske. There are many people who deserve praise for their considerable and sustained efforts.

IHA/EBM: But even if you don’t want to put forth individuals, you might have used the opera house to promote Centre coalition policies? After all, the building is a manifestation of a cultural policy, and at the same time makes it very obvious that architecture also has political intentions? And if you put these two together, surely you get a political tool with real potential?

AE: That is an interesting angle. But the way I see it, this building has been willed into being by a few determined enthusiasts. It was a conscious effort to showcase Norway as a cultural nation, and I think it has succeeded! Even if it belongs with the exceptions rather than the rule. There are certain things I am proud of having done as a politician: The EU vote; the ordination of Gunnar Stålsett as Bishop of Oslo, with ­everything that meant for the church’s view on homosexuality, for example; and then there is the opera. The passing of the Opera Bill was not that popular at the time. It did not happen by popular demand. But then the building rises out of the dust, and people embrace it as if it was something they have yearned for! That is nothing short of a marvel.

"The passing of the Opera Bill was not that popular at the time."

The people’s judgement

IHA/EBM: People seem to greet this building with an enthusiasm that no one was really prepared for. But you could perhaps have predicted some of this interest when the projects submitted for the open international design competition were exhibited in an old hangar at the former airport at Fornebu. Busloads of citizens queued for hours in the rain in order to take part in the fantasy of what this building could be. Could you say that this cleared a mental site in the collective consciousness of the capital?

AE: As a politician, you quickly become aware that what normal people are presented with in the media are the single stunts. The passing of the Opera Bill, the design competition, the exhibition. The single episodes. The fact that I was quoted in the press as having said the building should be “monumental but modest”. That provoked big reactions, amongst architects as well. The discussions around the choice of the marble. Those are the things people notice. In that sense, you could write the history of the opera project as the history of a series of stunts, and the exhibition is one of them.

AE: But now this glorious building is there, and something new opens up. This could herald a new golden age for architecture in Norway. Snøhetta has also had a particular ability to “sell” the project – in many ways, Kjetil Thorsen has described the Norwegian popular soul in his many stories of the opera. The roof and its accessibility, is a fundamentally democratic gesture. We can now point to that roof and its popular reception in many other contexts. If you can make the popular majority love a gift like this building, it does something to our self-image. We grow as a cultural nation.

Architecture and politics: A common cause?

IHA/EBM: The opera building has been described as “generous”, probably thanks to the roof. It has made room for something else, something more than its original intended function. For something more than opera: this is an architecture that speaks to the whole community. A new public space, in fact. And of course it is particularly in the design of our public spaces that architecture and politics come into contact. In addition, politics are manifest in the programming of what is built, in both the financial and functional priorities in a project.

AE: You mean architecture has room for politics? Yes, I suppose it has.

IHA/EBM: At the same time, this political space is a space which is not protected by any building regulations. There is no requirement for a discussion of the political dimension of a project, even in large building projects where the architectural qualities, or the lack of them, affect a lot of people.

AE: But aren’t architects just happy to avoid political meddling?

IHA/EBM: I am sure many of us are. But most architects are not so happy when the lack of discussion in a project means that the political space of negotiation is suddenly closed to professional input. Many architects have experienced that if they achieve something in a project, it has been despite, not because of, the framework of rules and regulations.

AE: What you are talking about is maybe the everyday buildings. But in this project there was an international design competition. The site was decided. So were the cost- and area outlines. And in the same way as for the Winter Olympics at Lillehammer in 1994, we established a number of monitoring groups to avoid overruns. The client- and user involvement was organised through a steering committee from the Ministry, the Opera and Statsbygg, who followed the process closely. There were both users and professionals at those tables, as well as politicians, participating in the many conversations around both planning and building. But that may not really answer your question...

IHA/EBM: Yes, but the question is how you move on from there, how you summarise the experience of all those participants for the benefit of other projects. Are there any plans for a kind of public or political learning process?

AE: Probably. But if what you are suggesting is a greater participation from national politicians in the details of various building projects, I think the distance is too great. It is natural to establish committees and groups that can contribute within a certain framework. And it is natural to have involvement, debates and understanding before important decisions are made.

Artistic freedom versus social responsibility?

IHA/EBM: If you look at a project like the youth centre at Bekkestua outside Oslo (Brøgger og Reine Arkitektur AS), it involved local politicians, architects and users sitting down together and discussing a common intention with the building. In today’s planning, there is a tendency to think of a building as a commodity, as a certain number of square metres with a number of specified technical installations. It may seem as if it was only Snøhetta who were thinking about the design of the opera as a political issue. Not even the competition jury mentioned the democratic aspect of the accessible roof; they talked about the relationship with the fjord and the space of the landscape. But it would be very straightforward to base a building on a set of political intentions, and make those intentions the basis for the architects’ work. Do you think the opera has informed anything in that regard?

AE: I am not sure I follow you. It is interesting that you seem to want to include politicians in the process. I could be with you if I happened to like that particular politician. But that might not be the case. So perhaps it is unavoidable that the architects have to take the main responsibility in developing the place for architecture in a space of political action into something more active.

IHA/EBM: You mean there should be a limit to the responsibility we place on politicians?

AE: Yes. For me, the architect is an artist as well, and needs to have artistic freedom in the interpretation of a brief. Architecture is also an art. You can see it very clearly in the opera. And all of a sudden you want to combine this with a political framework? I am surprised that you are willing to give up artistic freedom for architects just like that.

IHA/EBM: We probably have an idealistic view of politics. What we are talking about is the general political or social dimension of architecture, which you find in the aim or the intentions of architecture, not about letting single politicians decide the detailed design of a building. Most client organisations, public or private, do not consider how the aim of their building relates to the aims of society in a larger context. All too often they reduce their interest to the financial side. But if politicians paid attention to the possibilities that lie in the political dimension of architecture, they could get involved with the programming of important projects, or place more precise demands on those who build, developers or large organisations. Take the development of the rest of Bjørvika Bay for example, a development with huge consequences for society, but where the political will behind it is well nigh invisible. It doesn’t take much. It’s a case of pausing to think. Of forcing people who are given great opportunities by society to answer a few more questions before they get to make money.

"Most client organisations, public or private, do not consider how the aim of their building relates to the aims of society in a larger context."

AE: To return to the opera building: We had no idea this was possible. This building has become something way beyond what I could have imagined. You would probably be surprised by the respect politicians have for other professionals. In combination with politics, which after all is a kind of professional craft, you may go further in developing the framework for a project, but we should not get involved in the details. And I think you should be happy that we are not.

IHA/EBM: Well, yes, but we are not talking about the details, we are talking about the aims. A building has an aim, an intention that goes beyond the purely practical. We think one should extend the dialogue around these aims a little further into the planning process. You might achieve more than you thought possible. The production of buildings affects many important areas of society, often areas where big words are bandied about: Sustainability, democracy, universal access. Architects can meet a lot of these challenges, but the politicians have to make more of an effort to make it happen.

AE: I’m afraid the opera would never be here today if we had had a greater degree of political participation in the design. The opera building is a work of art, which we could not and should not get involved in beyond making the necessary decisions, agree on the outline conditions and organising good participation processes.

But I have to say I have not given this intersection between politics and architecture that much thought. As I mentioned I think it is high time that we turn our attention to developing and building up Norway as a cultural nation: It is a continual part of constructing a nation, and at this moment we can even afford it. So of course one should consider the development of society in all communal projects, buildings as well.

"So of course one should consider the development of society in all communal projects, buildings as well."

IHA/EBM: And doesn’t that mean that we have to extend the responsibility for this construction? Not just leave it to the architects? We need politicians who dare to say things like “sustainability” and really take the consequence of the aims they set. Architects cannot carry this load by themselves. And this has nothing to do with a limitation of artistic freedom; it has to do with the conditions architects have to work within. Both developers and architects need to be faced with tougher demands. And politicians are in a position to do something about that.

AE: Yes, and I think politicians and decision makers are already doing that. But there needs to be a greater consciousness of this. I think we need a little revolution in this area…

IHA/EBM: Nothing less.

AE: No. The politicians that make the decision to build are not sufficiently aware of the potential. But how can they get an idea of what they could achieve – and how?

IHA/EBM: And how do you increase this awareness?

AE: You just have to say it enough times.

Towards a cultural nation

IHA/EBM: In the case of the development of Bjørvika in particular, it is easy to loose heart in the face of the blatant hegemony market forces have been given in urban development in Oslo. Where is the human will behind the development of Bjørvika? Who is it that wants something, beyond the realisation of financial values? Because it is only when you can see that will, that there can be a possibility to affect it. Otherwise the economic arguments will rule all decisions. Of course, we regularly try to explain architecture with reference to economic arguments; we describe architectural quality and spectacular design as something that “adds value”, for example. But this just reinforces that everything is tied in with economy. How can you actually make it visible what the will of society is in a given development?

AE: Economy is just a question of how you put the numbers together. I agree with the frustration about how the development in Bjørvika is panning out. The situation needs more debate, a greater openness and involvement. And let me add an obvious thing: Politicians are elected by the people, and are answerable to the people at every election, and are judged on their programmes. It is not accidental that market forces hold such sway over people’s lives today. Democracy is a challenge, particularly for those who try to hold long-term views! So we need a greater awareness; we need to create meeting places for politics and architecture. If you look at the process of the opera project, there has been a whole string of such meeting places. That is what we should learn from for future projects.

"We need a greater awareness; we need to create meeting places for politics and architecture."

IHA/EBM: Do we need a cultivation of Norway?

AE: That is a contentious word, it makes it too easy to pass simple judgements on other people. But everyone has a need for, or a wish for, something.

IHA/EBM: You mean that cultivation, as a project, would meet with objections?

AE: I think many people would be positive to the notion of a “cultural nation”; many people are concerned with cultural issues. But if you are speaking in a public space, your message is received by a lot of different people. You have to be aware that you might offend some. And in Norway, you are not supposed to make yourself out to be better than anyone else.

IHA/EBM: Isn’t that a good thing in a democracy?

AE: Yes. But the agenda is to a great extent decided by the media. This flattens the political debate. The question is how to create meeting places where you can retain the depth of the discussion. The House of Literature in Oslo has been a successful example, in its field.

IHA/EBM: You mean we need a “House of Politics”?

AE: The House of Politics is Parliament.

IHA/EBM: So how about a “House of Architecture”?

AE: Maybe a combination. The opera could be a place like that. The architecture is part of the meeting. And there is no doubt that the experiences we have made with the opera can help make other projects better.

An interview with Alexander Brodskytag:www.architecturenorway.no,2014:/stories/people-stories/brodsky-08/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Einar Bjarki Malmquist: If you go to a library and look at architecture magazines, there is a sense that everyone knows what architecture is. But we think that by bringing your work onto the table, one might be able to open up that question again.

Alexander Brodsky: Some architects try to give a very short answer to this question.

Maybe it’s not so important to make it short. But I was thinking about this some time ago, how I would explain architecture in just a few words… Well, in Russian there is this special word that means something like “the wall that separates something from something”. It’s not abstract, it’s a very physical, practical thing. I would say architecture is the poetry of these separating walls.

EBM: You say it is practical… Is it the act of separation you focus on?

AB: Well, for me the poetical part of architecture is the most important thing. I think that the poetry can be in every wall that you see, walls that were made just to separate something from something else, which after all is one of the main tasks of architecture: To separate, to divide the big space, the endless space, into smaller and smaller and smaller parts.
I have always been trying to find something poetical in this.
In the beginning, when I was just making pictures with my former partner and old friend Ilya Utkin, we were dreaming about real architecture. We didn’t have the chance to do any real buildings, and we were drawing these pictures, but even here we also tried to put in some poetry in different ways.

"I was thinking about this some time ago, how I would explain architecture in just a few words…"

IHA: You say you were dreaming about “real” architecture. So this brings us to our second question…

AB: “What is real”? Yes. Well, for me it’s simple. What I call real architecture is what you can touch.

IHA: Architects have this idea that what is real is what is measurable, the things you can describe in a conventional architectural drawing…

AB: That’s not enough. You can measure and draw something without being able to touch the surface. What I call real architecture is what is built, which you can go into, or maybe you cannot go in but you can at least feel it, touch it.

The other common definition of real, or realism, is what can be built. But this is not enough either, because, actually, everything can be built. Almost everything, somewhere, at some time. Like the Egyptian pyramid: Today we cannot build it, but it was possible to build at that time. And now we can build things that they couldn’t build then, and so on and so on. So this is not what I call real, because in this sense, everything is real. In this sense, every project in these drawings is real, they can be built. If someone wanted to build them, it is possible.

"…actually, everything can be built."

IHA: They do it in Las Vegas.

AB: (laughs) They do it, they have money, they have the will to do it, so they do it. So what I call real architecture is simply just what is physically existing.

EBM: The way you describe the real, as something you can touch, reminds me of how I reacted when I first saw some of your drawings: They are really about some kind of bodily space. They are also about layers, about history, they have references – but they are disclosing and enclosing, they are showing and hiding things. This makes a dense and totally different space than what you can often see in architectural magazines, which is the clean space of the walls, floors and ceilings and the clean tables, unoccupied furniture and all those things. You seem to be trying to describe a different life. In your work in the Russian pavilion at the Venice biennale in 2006, you were reminding people of the life behind the walls. What kind of space would you say you are working with?

AB: When I just started thinking about architecture, there was one thing that was really important for me: When I was producing some space I was always trying to imagine the mood of the space. What the person will feel when he enters. That was the most important thing for me. I don’t know exactly how it influenced the architecture, but I was always thinking about the mood – was it sad, or scary, something like that. So when I was drawing, when I was trying to draw the space, this is what I was thinking about.

I have been waiting for more than 20 years to build, so I am still quite nervous about it. Dealing with clients, builders, all of that. But I still have a big hope that in the future, maybe soon, I will come to this other level where I have more time, when I can do these kinds of drawings for my projects. I really want to do that.

IHA: It doesn’t sound like you see the buildings you are doing now as a culmination of your work? The expectation that an architect should build is usually so enormous that it is very difficult for an architect to engage in other kinds of activities. So I am interested when you seem unhappy that your building activities are getting in the way of your drawing?

AB: In a way, yes. I miss the activity of drawing, just sitting and scratching with the needle… (laughs) So ideally, of course, I would like to do both things at the same time. To make drawings, to make etchings, to make sculptures, and build something also.

IHA: But you and Utkin have already accomplished something in this portfolio of drawing work?

AB: Yes, yes, but I still need to draw. Because the drawing, actually – and this is one of the most important things – as I understand it, the drawing has some mysterious quality that you can’t explain, that tells you something about the space… It tells you much, much more than the most perfect computer-based image.

I checked it many times, I was very much surprised myself. I sketched some interiors, for example, in the very beginning, when I just started doing buildings. I made a very rough drawing, because I didn’t have time to do precise things, I made a very rough sketch, and in the end, when everything was finished, I was really surprised to see how close it was to what I drew in the beginning.

EBM: What kind of mystery are you talking about?

AB: I think the drawing must have some kind of mythical, mysterious properties. Making a drawing is like making a door, which makes it possible to go inside. So I make a drawing and I see something new that I didn’t intend to make. And the drawing is the key to those moments.

"Making a drawing is like making a door, which makes it possible to go inside."

EBM: For me, you are explaining that in some way you are able to think through your drawing…

AB: Yes, exactly. That means – which sounds stupid, but is true – it means that when you draw, you hand makes more than you expected.

EBM: You think with your hands.

AB: Yes. The drawing can be a badly done perspective, with lots of mistakes, and still it is in the end much closer to the real thing than a very realistic computer rendering where the perspective and everything is perfect.

Recently I had been invited to take part in an exhibition in Italy, and I suddenly found that there was a deadline for sending a proposal. So I was sitting, and I made a drawing, very fast, to send it off in time. And it was amazing, because I had this idea, which I didn’t think much about, and I made this drawing, and suddenly I saw: Oh, that could be a great thing! (laughs) And I thought I have to think more about that, because it really can be something important! So I was sitting and looking at this drawing that I just made, not because I liked the drawing very much, it was just a sketch, but I saw something that I didn’t expect. And that’s the main thing about drawing.

IHA: Does this have to do with the tools? With the blank sheet of paper? Because the paper has nothing – well, it has a texture, obviously, but essentially the paper has nothing. Whereas the drawing space of the computer, in most cases, is already a construction. So when you insert your coordinates and points and so on into a drawing program, you are using a kind of existing library of thought, which is already fixed around you. The only exception would be the programs that some architects are working with, that have form generation capabilities, where you may get some of the same feedback that you get from a drawing. But in general, perhaps the space of the computer is not empty enough? Whereas a blank piece of paper allows everything… What kind of paper do you use?

AB: Well, I use different kinds of paper, but I like tracing paper. The very thin, translucent paper. I use it a lot. I love it.

IHA: Pen? Or pencil?

AB: Well, I used to work with pen and ink for years, and I really love it. But in the last few years I haven’t had time, because the ink has to dry, you know… (laughs) I use pencil… I have this favourite, here (laughs and gets his pencil out)… This is really nice. 0.6 I think. This is a very nice pencil. I use it all the time.

"So I was sitting and looking at this drawing that I just made, not because I liked the drawing very much, it was just a sketch, but I saw something that I didn’t expect. And that’s the main thing about drawing."

But talking about the computer, there is something about computer drawing that depresses me and makes me a bit scared, because I know that everything inside the computer is already programmed by someone else. I also cannot play these computer games, because I know that whatever I do, someone really clever [laughs] has thought about this already. The hand drawing, however, is absolutely free and unpredictable.

EBM: I cannot forget all those lines in your drawings. The obvious pleasure of making a line. And there is something about connecting to the social dimension, connecting to history … How important is it for you to draw a kind of story? You talk about the mood of a space, but one also has this feeling of seeing a detective story in all these lines – you have the tension, you have the references, you have the different elements relating to each other… There are some traces of life that you can follow here.

AB: Yes. Some kind of literature. Narrative. When I started – actually it was funny – I was not sure about architecture. I mean, I loved Roman ruins and Piranesi, but modern architecture was something that I absolutely could not understand. That was a big problem for me. I couldn’t understand why I should like it. I just respected it, but I didn’t feel anything. But I was in school, I had to do something. So I drew a lot of people, inside and around the buildings, because I felt I had to do something nice. That was a pleasure for me.

I made some design projects, but I couldn’t really understand why it was nice or what made it bad or good, and that was really disturbing. So to be more relaxed and quiet I drew a lot of people, crowds of people, and some little stories inside these things which they said was architecture. I became well known amongst the students because of that. Nobody cared about the architecture itself, but there were a lot of funny little people in there.
To understand modern architecture, for me, took a lot of time. It took years. And only after that I could do something by myself.

An interview with Jarmund Vigsnæs Arkitektertag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/stories/people-stories/jarmundvigsnaes-08/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The firm Jarmund / Vigsnæs AS describes itself as “a general store for architecture”. All told, the office currently has about 40 large and small projects ongoing. And, although it has made its mark with large projects such as the Svalbard Science Centre in Longyearbyen (2005), the Oslo School of Architecture (2002) and the new administration building for the Defence Staff and the Ministry of Defence at the Akershus Fortress (2006), it is the many small projects that particularly characterise the activities of the office. Work on holiday cabins, family houses and alterations involves a continuous exploration of new architectural and technological solutions, which gradually turn familiar environments in new directions.

Ingerid Helsing Almaas: You clearly enjoy the small projects?

Håkon Vigsnæs: We get close to people. These works are very important to the people involved, which makes us very enthusiastic.

Alessandra Kosberg: And it really builds up the pace of work at the office. Things are very intense for short periods while we are involved with the planning, and then the houses are built quite rapidly.

IHA: Is it possible to do things when designing family houses that are not so easy to achieve in larger buildings? With regard to both design and technology?

AK: There is very little repetition in a family house. You have the opportunity for considerable variation in individual programmes, and you can make them very different from other programmes.

HV: Another challenging aspect of building family houses is that this has become a sort of middle-class phenomenon in Norway, and the clients often have limited funds. They often can’t afford to do more than make alterations to an existing home. And this means that we have to really tune the solutions, to economise on space, site use etc. in order to make the most of what is available. Things often work out differently to what we think they will – more efficiently. And that resistance is a very valuable element. If you are designing a 1000 square metre holiday house, you don’t meet the constraints that makes you smart.

Einar Jarmund: We sometimes refer to this as a middle-class ethos: How to create paradise within a tight framework. And this is much more fun than the projects that have unlimited space and funding, where the freedom is only apparent.

HV: It is more difficult to question the ingrained conceptions of affluent people, because, if they see a picture in a magazine, they can afford to buy that particular dream.

EJ: It’s a matter of being able to make priorities. If you can have anything you want, you’re not able to make priorities. However, if you can only have a little, you have to base your wishes on some form of intelligence. And from this point of view, the big houses are at worst totally unintelligent.

"However, if you can only have a little, you have to base your wishes on some form of intelligence."

Affordable material qualities

IHA: What about material qualities? Is there anything that is affordable to people with deep pockets that you feel like using?

HV: We are really more interested in using industrial products in other ways that result in a different quality, without necessarily going back to good craftsmanship, which is awfully expensive today. A house of ours, by the sea near Stavanger, is not an expensive house. It was built in sandwich concrete, which is regarded as almost impossible to use because it is so costly and difficult, but you can find that expertise at a reasonable price in this area, because of the oil industry.

IHA: What about experiments with form? Many of your small projects adopt forms that challenge people’s conceptions regarding a family house or holiday cabin. Even among architects, there are probably many who take a sceptical view of sloping walls and sharp angles... What are you aiming for in terms of form?

HV: We try to free ourselves as far as possible in relation to each individual project. We force ourselves to think in terms of things not all being alike, of every challenge involving an element of originality, and this results in architecture that works well for the project concerned. At the same time, there are usually certain themes that we follow through two or three projects that we take a bit further. It’s a matter of taking hold of some primary elements that we are looking for on the site, and aligning things in relation to them. That is very often what we are aiming for – these precise alignments. And that often twists things out of the orthogonal axes. Form is often driven by an interaction between an internal spatiality and external conditions. Considerations regarding landscape, views, access, gradients... And, if you disregard the rationalist arguments, there’s nothing in the reality of architecture tying us to 90 degree angles. But in those cases where they are needed, where they are logical, we have no problems complying with the constraints imposed by right angles. Then they are an essential condition.

AK: I also think that the projects that are a bit more active designwise possibly escape the “house” concept: The box, the picture, the whole history of architecture with all previous references and relations to being a house. That is quite liberating...

Making the conditions clearer

IHA: The design language that you seem gradually to have developed breaks completely with what one normally expects, even in a world of attractive modern houses. At any rate, from a modernist point of view, it is the arbitrariness of the sloping angles that is the biggest objection against that type of architecture.

HV: We perceive our use of form as the opposite of arbitrary. That it is more an attempt to be precise in the situation. It is always a matter of making the conditions clearer.

EJ: Openness to several or many interpretations has become quite an important theme for us. We see that architecture only comes into being when someone looks at it.

HV: We want to open up for the users and viewers of the architecture.

EJ: And these viewers always have preconceptions of their own that we have no control over.

"Openness to several or many interpretations has become quite an important theme for us."

IHA: But is it not more difficult to build something that has this greater precision designwise, as you define it?

AK: Not necessarily. For example, it makes it possible to conceal all structure. You can use very cheap materials inside the walls because they are clad, or on the walls, for example, because they are angled in such a way that they reflect the light differently, so the material is no longer the most important part of the story.

EJ: And it is not necessarily a goal that something should be easy to build, is it?

IHA: No, but the reference here is to the association between the constructive rationality of modernism and practice in today’s building industry. For example, a carpenter would rather saw straight because sawing at an angle takes longer.

AK: But quality is dependent on skill in all parts of the process. And when you end up with a box lined with standard plasterboard that is completely uninteresting as a room, perhaps there is no place for quality anyway.

HV: It is a bit toothless to say, “Well, it’s neofunctionalist, which is our legacy from the modernist approach”, but then execute it just as latex-painted white plaster boxes.

AK: And then the new rooms just become exhibition rooms for Arne Jacobsen’s red industrial products instead of having their own identity. And this is perhaps something we have tried to strive a little against.

The power of form

IHA: From the way you have now been arguing regarding the creation of architecture, it is actually suddenly very difficult to talk about form at all. But I want to try: In a discussion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2006, Zaha Hadid was challenged on the question of architectonic form. She was confronted with the view that her buildings could be seen as aimless preoccupation with form, a luxury in relation to construction and economy, an incomprehensible waste of resources rooted in a subjective artistic indulgence... She responded with a lengthy discussion culminating in a single utterance: “Don’t knock form!” In other words, one should not dismiss the potential of architectonic form as if it were irrelevant, even when the form is challenged by all other rational aspects. We so easily attach importance to explaining everything we do, but architectonic form naturally has an aesthetic effect on people that, throughout many epochs of architectural history has been of central importance regardless of practical considerations.

HV: All epochs.

EJ: But even a shoebox is a form.

IHA: Yes, of course, but the issue is the will behind it, the purpose and intention: What is one trying to make?

EJ: When you consider Zaha Hadid’s projects, you are of course completely bowled over by The Peak. If there is one significant competition project of hers, this is probably it. But it was precisely because it was such a correct response to the situation, to lead up to such a peak, and live a metropolitan life on the top with that view... It was a project associated with both expectations and references in relation to a very broad range, not only of forms, but also thoughts. While, if you look at her building at Ordrupgaard museum, outside Copenhagen in Denmark, you wonder: Why does this look like this? There are very few points of contact with the programme or the location or what goes on there. What we are aiming for with all of our forms is to create such points of contact.

HV: And to combine a programme requirement on the one hand with an idea of light or some other situational quality on the other. So it’s not at all certain that the straight line is the most straightforward way of doing things. And, in that respect, form has a broad range of functions in understanding a situation, and there is much more to it than just proving a theory about rational building.

References and ideals

IHA: Can you say something about your architectural ideals? One thing is the general references in the development of a form, but you surely also have things that you like? How do you relate to them and how do you use them?

EJ: We use them actively all the time. We find things at many levels... Alison and Peter Smithson, for example... The English fifties architecture, such matter-of-factness – that has been important and dear to us. Early Jim Stirling is also a forgotten high point. The Leicester University Engineering Building and the Florey Building in Oxford are absolutely fantastic... If there was ever someone who was able to take Le Corbusier’s power of storytelling a step further, it was him.

HV: He was capable of handling pregnancy of meaning, the material that does more than just being in its apparently logical place in the hierarchy. He turned both constructive principles and use of materials upside-down.

EJ: In a very communicative way. To quote Peter Smithson, “Mies is great, but Corb communicates.”

HV: Rudolf Schindler has been important for us. We’re constantly returning to his...

EJ:…spatial sculptural treatment...

HV:…and ability to construe the location, his materiality, and strangeness. Unlike Frank Lloyd Wright, Schindler didn’t just choose a theme and spin everything round that, he allowed himself a number of moves that made him seem a bit eccentric. And that is something that we are looking for too. Things must hold some surprises, be a bit strange. A bit ugly, perhaps.

AK: We too can work with the box. It’s not that we have decided once and for all that we’re not going to make boxes, but one has to be aware of the demands involved both when working within familiar frameworks and when working outside of them.

"Things must hold some surprises, be a bit strange. A bit ugly, perhaps."

IHA: One also searches for natural forms in your work. But nothing of what you have said suggests that your use of form comes from associations with nature.

EJ: Well, that is one of our sources.

IHA: That a building should look like a boulder, for example.

EJ: It should, sometimes. That might sometimes be relevant.

IHA: Metaphors, especially natural metaphors, are important to Norwegian architects. People understand them. In many projects, the persuasive power of the metaphor helps to protect the architectural concept through the process. For example, natural forms become an important argument for the project: If the building looks like an iceberg, it must be good.

EJ: But, to what extent does a metaphor actually tell a story? What we want is in many ways a narrative architecture, or to explore the narrative potential of the architecture. And an architectural story should not be clear and simple. It should have a broad range. This is possibly part of the experience we have gained from encountering so many old buildings. A great deal of our work has actually involved remodelling old things.

HV: Our buildings in Svalbard certainly look as if they have derived their form from nature. But those buildings are generated by a mental state in the landscape, by a need for shelter. How does one best tackle the climate conditions? How does one make one’s building yield to nature so that it does not challenge the forces unnecessarily, while at the same time creating the security that one needs, both physically and mentally? And then it is perhaps not so strange, in the light of these principles, that the same things happen as have happened to the landscape, where wind and weather have played their part, and there may be an interrelation between the aerodynamic requirements regarding the building and the geological erosion of the surrounding rocks. However, this is not brought about by imitating the natural form, it is derived from engaging with the location.

IHA: Like a kind of intuitive response?

EJ: A refinement of one’s intuition.

HV: It is important to rework, refine the natural. In Norway, if you are to be honest and straightforward, you must definitely show the woodwork untreated, right? That is the “ultimate truth”. But you can have a layer of piano lacquer between the woodwork and the world, that will preserve the wood, accentuate the fragility and say much more...

AK: We have talked about the fact that the solemn architect, the guardian of the truth, who after all characterised our student days, has been replaced by a different view of the world. You can investigate and experiment all you will, but you are not always completely aware of what themes you come into contact with.

HV: The architect was previously a law unto himself in a way. That is the opposite of what we want. Complexity is a method too; through open seminars, popular meetings and broad discussions, to find a symbiosis in the many parameters of a situation. That is were the originality lies.

An interview with Richard Burdetttag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/people-stories/burdett-07/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

"Cities. Architecture and Society" presented studies of 16 of the world’s major cities, from London and Milan to Mumbai and Caracas, outlining their present and their future in terms of both social and physical development. All these cities are huge, many of them expanding at a tremendous pace, and many of them struggle with poverty and sprawling slums. Traffic and pollution problems are colossal. Social difference and crime are an everyday threat – these cities, soon to house more than half of us, pose an immediate challenge to human societies across the globe.

In Norway, 78% of the population lived in cities in 2007. There were no Norwegian cities in the Venice exhibition: The largest city in Norway, Oslo, has 613 000 inhabitants, on a global scale barely a village. At the same time, Norway has one of the very highest levels of GDP per capita in the world. Small, but filthy rich. What challenges do Norwegian cities face? What are the opportunities and responsibilities of wealth on the world stage? Ingerid Helsing Almaas put these questions to Richard Burdett.

Ingerid Helsing Almaas: It may be a naive supposition, but it seems as if Norway should be able to make a contribution to the global urban environment, as a model of environmental sustainability perhaps, or of civic organisation – as if there are things you can control on a small scale which is more difficult to organise on a large scale, in the huge cities. Do you think Norwegian cities have a role to play in a global network?

Richard Burdett: Well, what are the problems that the country is facing? What are the key issues affected by planning? There’s no point in fixing something which isn’t broken.

IHA: In a way we have the opposite problem to what the large urban centres are facing. What one has been trying to do in Norway, politically, is to retain social and economic cohesion in a country that tries to cover an area just less than the size of Germany, with a population of 4,5 million people. That places big demands on infrastructure, for example, that are only partially being met, and only by a very conventional road network – the railroad stops two thirds of the way up the country. But at the same time there is a great movement of people to the cities and a depopulation of the countryside, similar to what you are seeing elsewhere in Europe.

RB: Research and knowledge can impact on practice anywhere. Here at the LSE we have a research and teaching centre that focuses on cities around the world; we don’t need to experience the same problems as Shanghai here in London to be able to offer some critical evaluation. Any country can contribute to the debate on the future of cities by developing a critical discourse based on the intelligence and skills that you have at home.

"The relationship between physical form and social wellbeing needs to be better understood by politicians, designers and city-makers."

I think one can say, at the risk of generalising, that cities across the world do experience the same type of physical problems but with differing levels of intensity – take, for example, sprawl vs. density, exclusion vs. integration. But it is the relationship between physical form and social wellbeing that needs to be better understood by politicians, designers and city-makers. So perhaps a self-reflection on urban trends in Norway and their impacts on society would be a useful starting point for any research on the urban condition. Of particular significance, it seems to me, is the relationship between a city in Norway and its extended “city region”, and how the two interrelate at the level of labour markets, housing and commuting patterns. These issues underpin the long-term social, environmental and economic sustainability of a city.

Ultimately I feel quite optimistic about cities. Despite the staggering statistics of how many millions of people live in cities today, many of them in slum conditions, there is evidence that cities can be fixed, “retrofitted” and made to work. For example, Mexico City (the sprawling megacity of 20 million people) or Bogotá (Colombia’s fast growing capital of over six million) are responding in very different ways to the pressures of growth and the use of public transport. Mexico City has for too long just let the city grow outwards, building more and more roads and double-decker motorways to fuel this expansion. Bogotá, instead, adopted a low-tech solution that has made a unique difference to patterns of movement and the quality of life of its residents. The introduction of Transmillennio buses, which run on dedicated lanes and their connection to an extended network of cycleways, has created a new infrastructure of growth for this fast growing city. Before this intervention by its inspired Mayor Enrique Penalosa, average commuting times could be up to two or three hours a day. Today they have dropped by a last half with commensurate improvements on work productivity and social relations. This piece of physical infrastructure, which has positive impacts on sustainability due to energy reduction, has a strong impact on people’s lives at a very personal level. This is what I mean that we must better understand the links between the physical and the social in cities...

At the 10th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, which I directed, we showed some interesting research developed by Sistematica and the Politecnico di Milano which illustrates how patterns of accessibility will change we have the high-speed rail network connecting European cities over the next 20 years. The studies showed how a fully developed high-speed network is far more effective and “democratic” than one based on airplane connections. By calculating the number of people that can be reached by train or by plane within four hours and then working out their average income, you get a very clear picture of the social potential of transport systems. For example some cities like Milan or Prague will double or treble their accessibility to people and job markets, and at the same time reach a population with lower incomes than those who can be reached within four-hour (door-to-door) plane journeys.

"The integrated city-region, with a constellation of smaller towns and cities well connected by rail transport, seems to me a relevant model for Norway."

The potential of an integrated city-region, with a constellation of smaller towns and cities well connected by rail transport as in Germany, seems to me a relevant model to the Norwegian condition which, as you say, is heavily reliant on plane travel. The benefit of the polycentric German city network is that the region as a whole performs like a “megacity”, with individual centres of economic, cultural and creative activities that have the potential of mutually supporting each other.

The case of London, as a complex, large and relatively wealthy city, is also instructive. The mayor Ken Livingstone has just implemented a new climate change policy which will aim to reduce carbon emission substantially in the next decade by tackling energy waste in London’s households and investing in new forms of energy generation, including heat and power. Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York has just announced a similar plan which includes a possible Congestion Charge zone for Manhattan. It is interesting that cities are trying to outdo each other the Climate Change game, in many ways overtaking their national governments in innovative sustainable policies. So, London is now embarking on a programme of retrofitting all its social housing stock with improved insulation and has recently extended its Congestion Charge zone which has reduced the number of private vehicles on the road in the centre by about 20%, as well as seen 100% increase in bus use over the last four years. Many cities around the world are studying these models.

IHA: Eyes on Western Europe – is it true to say that the current urban development in China, for example, or in India, is based on Western models?

RB: I would say that today cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Mumbai or New Delhi - urban regions that are growing at an astronomical pace – are often based on outdated western urban models from the 1960s and 1970s. But while many western cities have gone full circle and rediscovered the social and economic benefits of smart growth, transport-orientated development, mixed-use and compact urban form, many of the cities of the Global South are planned on the flawed principles of zoning, car-dependency and increased segregation. New Delhi’s “new” masterplan envisages a constellation of shopping malls around the city as a “good thing”. In Britain, it is extremely difficult to receive planning permission for out-of-town shopping centres due to their negative impact on travel patterns, energy use and negative effects on local economy.

Many of these fast developing countries seek to celebrate their newfound affluence by celebrating the freedom afforded by the private car. One must avoid a “holier than thou” attitude here by going beyond a trite critique. The key issue to me lies in the difference between car ownership and car use. In London, for example, many people own cars but because of the relative efficiency and distribution of the underground and bus service, over 40% of people get to work using some form of public transport. In fact, the financial heart of the capital, the City of London, has over 95% of workers using trains and the underground, so more millionaires use the tube in London than in any other city in the world. Cities like Mumbai, Sao Paulo and Mexico City – and perhaps even some of your Norwegian cities – can learn from this model.

The link between density and complexity is another aspect that mist be considered when one looks at the way so many megacities are developing today. Rather than building on the rich and intense physical fabric of their own urban cultures, many cities follow a pattern of development that create alienated, one-dimensional public spaces that do not possess the depth and character of a true urban place. Perhaps today, western cities can still offer a model of how the public spaces of the city are places of tolerance and inclusion. This is not the case in the new public environments of Johannesburg, Mexico City of Shanghai. What many of these cities lack is the basic human right to occupy space safely, to afford the luxury of being on your own in the public realm. You are not safe in Johannesburg, you cannot walk on your own, and the effect of that is that people abandon the city centre and have gone to live in new suburban centres elsewhere, where the only way to get in and out of your property is though electronic gates, three metre high walls and barbed wire. When this happens to the urban landscape, no-one walks on the streets, so many roads are built without pavements. In this way you develop an emerging physiognomy of an “anti-city”, where difference becomes more important than being together, which is ultimately what cities are about. Western social democracies – like the UK or Norway – can provide positive models of the significance of public space.

IHA: The Norwegian Ministry of Finance has just been presented with a report on the peer review of what is to become a national policy for sustainable development. Now, whilst it is commendable that the work on sustainability is anchored in the Ministry of Finance, it is curious, seen from the point of view of the planning profession, that the report doesn’t mention physical planning. Not even in connection with transport or biological diversity. So your strong reminder of the close links between social well-being and physical environment is very prudent. This leads to another important question: the status of the public planner. In Norway the 20th century image of the benevolent gentleman planner, laying out avenues with a grand vision and who sorting out what’s best for people, has up to now been an ideal. I think everyone recognises that that model is not viable anymore, but when controversial developments are proposed, the profession still calls for tighter planning control. Much of the development currently going on in Oslo, for example, is private. And the only aim of private development, at least in our context, is investment. All arguments are financial. How have the recent city projects that you’re referring to come about? Are they publicly initiated? Are they part of a public-private collaboration?

RB: I think the trend that you are describing in your country, in Norway, of progressive erosion of the public sector, is what we went through in Britain under Mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s and early 1990s, and now we’re coming out the other end. You will find that the public sector investment, even in the planning world, is beginning to creep up again. In the 1970s, the vast majority of British architects worked for the state, for central government or local authorities. Today it must be less than ten per cent. The critical question for us is has this shrinkage of the public sector made things worse or better. London presents an interesting case study here. The city starting pulling itself together from the mid-1990’s onwards, just at the time that London suffered from political and financial underinvestment. Following the abolition of the Greater London Council by Mrs Thatcher in 1985, London didn’t have a government; it was being run by its 33 boroughs and controlled by central government.

Yet some of the most interesting developments were initiated at that time. The Tate Modern, and the redevelopment of the South Bank, happened on an ad-hoc basis, without any sort of central government intervention. The Tate Gallery of Modern Art decided to build a new museum –the Tate Modern now visited by 5 million people a year - which triggered the construction of the Millennium Bridge linking the City of London to the South Bank. The entire has now transformed with thousands of Londoners and visitors using the South Bank as a cultural boulevard along the River Thames. Even the massive office development at Canary Wharf, whatever else we think of it, represents an unplanned project that was due to the “courage” of a single developer rather than the intelligence of government planners. The argument here is that if there is a sense of what that city is trying to be, I think you can steer the private sector in very direct ways. You need policy instruments to do that, but you don’t need enormously centralised planning. Critically these policy instruments should be more qualitative than quantitative. There’s a balance to be struck here between bureaucracy and vision. I don’t think large centralised planning departments are the solution.

IHA: So if the condition is a shared vision of the city and what it is to become: from where is that vision initiated, and how is it sustained?

RB: There is absolutely no doubt that a strong city mayor is important. The mayor has to be the person who sets, interprets and articulates that vision. If you look at the London Plan, the city’s main planning document, it is a series of statements and aspirations that reflect Ken Livingstone’s views. The London Plan does not have grand drawings and perspectives; there is no physical view of what might happen to the city. It’s a series of very clear written aspirations, about multi-culturalism, about diversity, about fairness, about environmental aspirations which guide and steer the way the city develops.

IHA: My impression of local government in Oslo, for example, is that the local government is always in a defensive position – that has to do with the need for re-election – and they are primarily laying claim to the status quo, The right to say: ”This is the way it is”, before someone else pipes up and says: ”No it’s not”. They talk about how it should be, but not about what the city will become. In other words, planning is chiefly used as a rhetorical tool.

RB: You are saying that local politics by definition freezes the potential for dynamic growth. Bottom-up politics can lead to a sense on NIMBY (Not-In-My-Back-Yard) culture which stifles change. There’s no doubt in my mind that a strong local politician, who embraces a physical vision for the city is critical to urban success. For example, if you did not have the succession of powerful mayors in Barcelona – Narcis Serra, Pasqual Maragall, Joan Clos, and now Jordi Hereu, Barcelona would not be Barcelona. Perhaps Ken Livingstone offers another example, as do Rudi Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg in New York. The mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, is using the city platform to enter national politics just as the mayor – now Governor - of Sao Paulo, José Serra, is looking to enter the next presidential election race. The city is a stepping-stone from local to national politics. Without a strong mayor, and good governance, the city is weak. That’s why nothing happens in Indian cities. They don’t have mayors. They’re all controlled by central government.

IHA: And so what should the architectural profession do?

RB: Get in bed with mayors: Richard Rogers with Ken Livingstone. Oriol Bohigas with Pasqual Maragall. Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel etc., are all adept at this game.

IHA: The National Association of Norwegian Architects, NAL, is currently trying to formulate an architectural policy for Norway, which we haven’t had for the past 15 years, and when we did it was about aesthetics…RB: The RIBA, for example, is now absolutely clear that political lobbying must be at the core of what they do, not just promote aesthetics. Perhaps more importantly, we need to completely overhaul the education of the architect. There is nothing wrong with doing a beautiful building, don’t misunderstand me, but there’s a lot wrong with doing a building which is beautiful and anti-urban or anti-social. Future generations of architects must be taught to understand that.

IHA: So if we get into bed with the bed with the mayors, what do we give them, if not beauty?

RB: You help them develop a vision for the city.

IHA: There should be architects willing to work in the ministries.

RB: Yes. Your minister of finance should have an architectural advisor! I am sure there are many excellent candidates in Norway.

Return to the Source: A footpath and a canopytag:www.architecturenorway.no,2016:/stories/people-stories/jensen-16/2017-06-27T22:36:29+10:00

Einar Bjarki Malmquist: How did your office in Norway get this project in China?Jan Olav Jensen: We got an email, as simple as that, asking if we would like to come to China to see a plot of land and discuss a possible project. We knew very little of what it was about, but the clients had seen some of our buildings published. So, I went there and we were commissioned first to do a concept study. We presented that in China, and were commissioned further, to do a preliminary design proposal. Then later we got to work up details and working drawings. It all happened step by step, with us knowing very little at each step about what was to come. This made it a very exciting and interesting commission.

EBM: What made it particularly exciting?JOJ: There was a lot of energy in the process and it went fast. We made the first sketches in March 2014, the working drawings that same summer and autumn, and the building was finished in December 2014, and the design was still being adjusted until just a few days before the opening. In less that one year we made almost a thousand drawings. The project went so much faster and with much more passion and energy than any similar project here in Norway. Here it would probably still be at a preliminary stage. Yet despite it going so fast, the overall craftsmanship and the precision of the details is extraordinary.

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EBM: What other differences have you experienced compared to working in Norway?JOJ: I have only had experience of this one project, but the striking thing to me was the enthusiasm of the client. It was obvious that this project meant a lot to them, and they spent a lot of time with us. In Norway you can often be at a distance to the real client or everyday user, the one who will live with your decisions day to day. Instead you are talking to someone who might not care that much about the result or who really has no insight into what’s needed. Such a mind-set can really kill the architecture in almost any project. That’s the big difference I experienced in the water project in China: the people were eager and committed throughout the whole process.
Perhaps we had an exceptional client. I do not want to romanticise it, but they seemed very sensible in terms of what the brief needed, and flexible when changes were needed to improve the project: something I think the National Office of Building Technology and Administration in Norway could learn a lot from. The way mind-sets and bureaucracy works in Norway is literally dangerous for good architecture. It’s a fundamental problem.

I have always thought that it’s a good idea to listen to others, and my experience in China reinforced this. My own roots are mixed, from several cultures, and I’ve always found it exciting to hear and see how other people think and do things. How they solve problems. How they live. Norway is more open now, luckily. But there’s always a reason to open up further and get inspired. To meet the people and work on this project was a huge inspiration.

"The site was really challenging. No motor vehicles are allowed in the forest, so all the materials had to be carried manually to the construction site."

EBM: Your office is known for being good at dealing with existing landscapes, often using tiny foundations, for instance, to protect trees. This was also an important aspect of this commission…JOJ: Yes. The site was really challenging. With such a well-preserved landscape with many tall, old trees, we had to pinpoint carefully the spots to lay foundations for the path to avoid the tree roots, all the time in dialogue, of course, with both the client and the preservation authorities. Meanwhile, no motor vehicles are allowed in the forest, so all the materials had to be carried manually to the construction site, and we had to think from the beginning about the dimensions and weight of the construction elements based on what ten men could carry. That also made prefabrication the obvious option. All this made led us rationally onto the track of a geometric and structural system.

EBM: Can you tell us a little about the flexibility of the circular shaped steel sheets that sit over the foundation points for the path?JOJ: These round elements are probably the most important invention of the project. It was there from the beginning of the concept studies and it made it possible for us to choose the direction of the path easily, based on the measured positions of each foundation, which consists of a thin steel pole sunk between the tree roots. Steel beams of varying lengths stretch between these specific points and support the path. Thanks to this round detail, adapting the direction of the path from one foundation point to the next between the trees was no problem.

EBM: In terms of its logic, this reminds me of an earlier project of yours, a prototype brick you designed, the geometry of which allows you to change the alignment of a wall with each successive brick.JOJ: You mean the “LadyBrick”? Yes, it’s based on a similar idea. Each brick can be laid in a direction independent of the one before it because of the rounded ends: it resembles a number 8, kind of like the links in a bicycle chain. The only fixed relationship is the distance between the centres of the geometric circles that generate each brick’s circular geometry – the points of rotation. Similarly the centres of rotation in the project in China are the geographic points between the trees.

EBM: It’s interesting to compare this to what has been a popular theme with architects in recent years, so-called “parametric design”, where repetitive construction elements based on an overall geometric strategy are used to make the curves or surfaces of buildings. With such projects, for example for a museum or a sports stadium, the final resolution of their shape is very flexible. There are often no restrictions in the plan: nothing from the real world other than gravity to disturb the implementation of the idea – unlike here, with the site full of protected trees!JOJ: In general terms, such parametric projects have huge freedom when it comes to deciding their visual aspect. If you want a particular proportion to appear, then you can just move or stretch the construction accordingly. These decisions are more or less independent of the surrounding landscape. It is an exciting tool, but it can let you as an architect go crazy. I think nearly all compositions benefit from some kind of discipline, some difficulty, what Lars von Trier called ”dogma”.

At the springwater project we have two such complicating issues, one which we chose ourselves, and one that was given: 1) a shell roof with no bracing or secondary elements, and 2: a tricky amorphous site with many disturbances and protected trees right up against the spring. The roof we originally wanted to design had a shape that would have appeared heavy. We felt it was necessary to avoid any secondary elements in order to achieve the lightness and elegance we were after. That was a basic architectonic aim, but for the first six months we actually had no idea how to solve this structurally. While the path and the foundations for the roof were being built, we were still designing the superstructure. At this point all the foundations were set out and we were really tied to the mast. Many of the initial structural solution we considered would have collapsed without secondary bracing. We made a lot of small cardboard models, adjusted them, tested them with our engineer, and progressed very slowly. Finally we arrived at a kind of pitched-roof principle. The structure had quite limited geometric margins, but enough to allow the deformation of a basically rectangular system, so it fitted the forest.

This is what Frei Otto called minimal structures; structures that need to have very particular shapes in order to work, which is as far as you can get from parametrics. After a few months of work and a lot of experimentation, the FEM-analysis and the engineer approved it all, the sheet schedules were sent off to China and the roof was ready at the opening.

An Interview Review of A Genealogy of Modern Architecture: Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Formtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2016:/stories/people-stories/mcquillan-frampton-16/2017-07-05T00:47:11+10:00

In his Studies in Tectonic Culture, Kenneth Frampton appended an epilogue entitled ‘The Owl of Minerva’ (Frampton 1995) a reference to Hegel’s image that the ‘the owl of Minerva takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering’, or that a period of thought can first understand its own condition as it is drawing to a close.

There, Frampton struck a somber tone, noting that ‘architects are confronted today by a crisis of value comparable to that experienced by Gottfried Semper in 1851’, and concluding that ‘over the last century and a half cultural devaluation has greatly increased its scope, and its main effect has now shifted to the “spectacular” side of the economic cycle’. But despite, or perhaps because of, this note of foreboding, Studies in Tectonic Culture1 has become a central point of reference in current architectural discourse and a rallying cry for those who have sought to reimbue the work of architecture with a real constructional and material presence.

Frampton’s recent A Genealogy of Modern Architecture: Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Form (2015)2 reenters this fray in a concentrated and specific form, through the close comparative analysis of 28 modern buildings, two by two, in order to interrogate their spatial, constructive, envelopmental, and programmatic characteristics. The pairings arise out of shared programs — whether dwellings, office buildings, or museums. But this common programmatic genesis throws into sharp contrast the architectonic asymmetry that the particular spatial and constructive embodiment produces. The comparative method is well suited to reveal the underlying ideas and solutions that each case presents, as well as to explode the notion that the modern project in architecture is somehow uniform.

Among the cases are striking pairings, such as that of Terragni’s Casa del Fascio and Asplund’s Göteborgs Rådhus, which despite sharing a politically informed civic programs and being realized only a year apart (in 1936 and 1937, respectively) represent nearly diametrically opposed conceptions of the political animal. Both are four-storied, six-bayed cubic forms; both explore the interplay between surface and expressed structure; both display a balanced asymmetry; both express in an exceedingly subtle manner though facade geometry the internal configuration of their inner spaces. But while the Casa del Fascio is tightly rational in the arrangement of its spaces and crisply precise in its pattern of circulation, Göteborgs Rådhus reveals a gentler and more refined arrangement of organically inflected geometries and a more meandering and placid movement through its spaces. While the Casa stands apart in a balanced dialogue with the Cattedrale di Como, Asplund’s Rådhus is a carefully integrated extension to Nicodemus Tessin’s 1672 City Hall Building.

The analysis of the cases is introduced in Frampton's introduction to A Genealogy of Modern Architecture, ‘Synoptic Note’, one of the most concentrated expositions of the history of modern architecture I have ever read, as well as building on his reading of Hannah Arendt's 1954 The Human Condition.3 Frampton seeks the meaning of architecture in the tectonic — or the way that it is built — not only in the spaces it affords or the images that it projects. In order to gain a deeper background on these ideas and to relate A Genealogy of Modern Architecture to the current architectural scene, I spoke recently to Professor Frampton in his Columbia University office.

McQuillan: The notion of the tectonic seems to be very central to your understanding of how architecture works. It seems natural to trace this idea back to Semper and the tectonic as one of his Four Elements4. But it seems as though your use of the term is much more expansive, including all of the Semperian elements. What does the tectonic mean to you?

Frampton: Studies in Tectonic Culture (1995) arose out of four lectures I gave at Rice University in Texas in the 1980s, the Craig Francis Cullinan Lectures. The four lectures dealt with the work of four architects: Auguste Perret, Jørn Utzon, Louis Kahn, and Mies van der Rohe. Structural expression was very important to all four, but in different ways. And the reason I wanted to look at these four was the ongoing difficulty we were already experiencing with the grounding of architecture. The notion of the tectonic is also related to my reading of Alex Tzonis and Liliane Lefaivre, who coined the term ‘critical regionalism’ in the article ‘The Grid and the Pathway’, published in Architecture in Greece in 1981 (Tzonis and Lefaivre 1981)5, in which they discuss the work of the two Greek architects, Aris Konstantinidis and Dimitris Pikionis, and formulate a critical regionalism to disassociate the term from the demagogic regionalism of the Third Reich.

I was very inspired their idea of critical regionalism and wanted to develop it in contrast to the universal suburbia in the States at that time, where despite the vast continental expanse, the same suburbia was everywhere. In my essay ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’ (Frampton 1983), I asserted that there was a fundamental opposition between the tectonic and the scenographic in architecture, where the tectonic is the fundamental autonomy of the structure, and the scenographic is the representational aspect of the image. Semper’s model of the four elements grows out of an anthropological paradigm, but he also expresses an ambivalence to the scenographic aspect of the mask or bekleidung. The scenographic, theatrical aspect was crucial to him.

This led me to distinguish between the ontological and the representational tectonic. The Doric column may be cited as an example of this, in which the flutes finally bring into being the entirety of the column; otherwise, it's just a series of cylindrical stones stacked on top of each other. I find this concept to be extremely rich, with regard to the detailing of built form. Alvar Aalto, I think, was very aware of this, even if he never formulated the issue in terms of representation. In contrast today, the spectacular image has taken over completely.
This brings me to Guy Debord's Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (Debord 1990; originally published in French in 1988)6 in which we find the amazing passage that reads as follows:

It is indeed a shame that human society should encounter such burning problems just when it has become materially impossible to make heard the least objection to commodity discourse, just when domination — quite rightly because it is shielded by the spectacle from any response to its fragmentary and delirious decisions and justifications — believes that it no longer needs to think; and cannot indeed think.

McQuillan: Indeed, in the current global scene which celebrates ‘starchitects’ it seems as though we're in a period of a technological sublime, or a mediated architecture, that has little truck with the notion of the regional. And I imagine that there's going to be a reaction similar to the one that spurred ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’ in which architecture can become grounded again, grounded in something local, something meaningful, something which has some kind of moral purpose.

Frampton: Well, most of our star architects are surely spectacular, are they not? And that spectacular quality means that, from my point of view, they're not grounded at all, and they're not interested in being grounded, and indeed their success depends on their not being grounded. Terry Eagleton has recently written a book with the title Culture and the Death of God (Eagleton 2014)7, in which according to the gloss, he argues that today one has to resist the commodification of culture.

McQuillan: Well, culture can’t be commodified, and still retain its meaning as culture, can it?

Frampton: Exactly. I think Clement Greenberg’s essay ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ (Greenberg 1939)8 is relevant here, in which he put forth the argument that the task of the arts is to resist their reduction to pure entertainment, and that the autonomy of each is the only way of resisting this commodification, although he doesn’t use this word. But he posits the idea of having to sustain a ‘holding operation’, in order to protect culture against all this, although this is quixotic by definition.

McQuillan: In your ‘Synoptic Note on the Modern Movement 1923–1980’, the introduction to your book (Frampton 2015), you introduce a three-part structure, a sort of triad, that you employ to structure your examination of the development of modern architecture. Against the dialectic opposition of Classical and Romantic, or the type-based against the expressive, you suggest that a triad of the classic, the technological and the vernacular provides a better framework to understand the way architecture developed in the 20th century.

Frampton: Well, this is taken from Le Corbusier, as you know. I was influenced by the map of his Voyage d’orient, his 1911 journey to the east (Frampton 2015: 9). He doesn't use the word ‘classic’, however. Instead he uses the word ‘culture’. It is I who translated it or rather misrepresented it as classic. It seems to me that he touched on something which would be present in his own work, namely, the existence and continuity of the vernacular, of building instead of architecture. We see this in Adolf Loos’ essay ‘Architecture’ of 1910 (Loos 1985)9 that describes a pre-aesthetic world in which he asks the peasant, ‘Is this a beautiful roof or an ugly roof?’ And he says, he doesn't know. It's the roof his father built, and the roof his grandfather built. It is beyond the aesthetic. So the vernacular is, in this sense, a referent lying within the heroic period of the modern movement.

"It's the roof his father built, and the roof his grandfather built. It is beyond the aesthetic."

I still think it's astonishing that Le Corbusier’s last purist villa is 1929, and in 1931, he projects the Maison Errazuriz in Chile, which is completely something else. You could say that his Maison de week-end of 1935 is a synthesis of all three aspects in the use of glass blocks, plate glass, within a steel frame, and the concrete shell-vault, while the vernacular is present via the rubble stone walling. So the classicism of the purist villas is weakening.

McQuillan: It seems to me that Le Corbusier’s understanding of technology changed during his trip because after his dismay at the flattening of culture by mechanical processes in Germany, he arrives at Athens and upon seeing the Parthenon calls it a machine terrible. I think that this is the first time he makes the connection between the classical and the technological.

Frampton: Yes, along with the classical entablature being compared to the profiles of a valve in an automobile.

McQuillan: Or indeed architecture as a machine for producing in you an emotion or sensation.

Frampton: Yes. An evocative but slightly confusing metaphor focusing on the idea of the perfection of the automobile, hence the parallel comparison of a Humber versus a Delage, and Pæstum versus the Acropolis.
McQuillan: The idea that technology is an evolutional process.

Frampton: However, a crisis unfolds between 1923, when it's at its evolutionary peak when he’s working with Ozenfant, and 1931, when the Maison Errazuriz occurs. For him, the myth of industrial perfection is no longer quite believable. And this cultural shift affects his painting as well.

McQuillan: Maybe the seeds of this are even a little earlier, in his own apartment, where the vault emerges for the first time, and he leaves the rubble party-wall unrendered in his studio. As well as the Objets à réaction poétique that he collected on his journeys, populating the space, so he’s living the experience together with his wife and realizing the limitations of the purist idea. He’s attained a sense of perfection in the Villa Savoye, but he’s realizing there’s so much more.

Frampton: Well, he begins to have doubts about the desirability of industrial perfection. So he tries to distance himself from it. His trip to Brazil at this time is also a decisive emotional experience for him. He has the sense that, as opposed to Europe, South American civilization could provide a fertile, more primitive ground.
McQuillan: A place where the past doesn’t need to be cleared away.

Frampton: Right. And because it's so vital, in contrast to Europe which appears increasingly exhausted. One may compare this to Owen Jones' Grammar of Ornament of 1856 10, where the European ornament, rendered throughout in ochre, is compared to the ornament of the ‘other’, which is brilliantly illuminated. As if the only possible revitalization will be through the ‘other’, not through Europe.

McQuillan: This is clear in Le Corbusier’s interest in the primitivism, and the exhibition that he hosted in his apartment in the early 1930s of primitive art, together with Léger and others.

Frampton: Well, this shift away from the West was already evident in Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon of 1916, and clearly there is a similar impact of the African on European art and music, and of course there is an afro basis latent in Brazilian culture, not to mention his transatlantic meeting with Josephine Baker.

McQuillan: There's a rather interesting passage in the book where you say,
Today, however we still may assume an ideologically progressive approach to post-modern architectonic form via a sensitive response to context, climate, topography and material combined with the self-conscious generation of a place-form as a political-cum-cultural space of appearance’. (p. 17)

This seems to suggest that architecture as a public form can somehow draw from the well of postmodernism a valid approach to architecture. Not a break with modernism, but a redefinition of its tenets, so that the kind of critical distance that postmodernism introduces provides a much-needed resistance to the commoditization of architecture and its sense of globalized conformity and compliance.

Frampton: Well, if you mean by postmodernism a style, then surely we’ve moved passed that. But if one means the modern project, as a liberative socialist modern project, it is surely very fragile today, and in this regard I think it can be said that we are unavoidably in a postmodern condition. If we associate the modern with the enlightenment, which acquired a particular energy and inevitability after the First World War, then we can see that this encountered a difficult moment with the Spanish Civil War and then the Second World War.

I now have the task of writing the fifth edition of my Modern Architecture: A Critical History 11, and the only way I can do this is to add another part to the existing three. The fourth part, which was previously just a chapter, will now be called ‘World Architecture’. There is very varied diverse production worldwide which has a great intensity and richness.

That sentence you mentioned earlier is related to my earlier reaction which produced my 1983 essay ‘Towards a Critical Regionalism’12 that appeared in Hal Foster’s The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture. I haven't completely disavowed this thesis, but I'd rather not use the term ‘postmodern’ any more, even though in this case it refers quite directly to the idea of critical regionalism as this was developed in the 1983 essay.

McQuillan: You suggest in the ‘Philosophical Excursus’ in the introduction to the book that your critical method with respect to the analysis of the case studies is based in your reading of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition, that is to say, her distinction between ‘work’ and ‘labor’, and the corresponding character of public and private spaces. How does Arendt’s thesis underlie your view of architecture?

Frampton: I just have to confess that I'll never recover from the thesis of her book. It was a total revelation about many things at once, like the idea of a spatial hierarchy, which maybe I could never articulate before, i.e. the relation between the public and the private, which determines much of the analysis in these case studies. From this I also develop the idea that the subject is formed to some extent by the space and that the ‘space of appearance’ allows the subject to come into being in this sense. The subject — both as a unitary subject, but also as a collective, family, group. So that the space itself, the articulation of hierarchy of space, is itself significant, that the meaning is built in into what the space can induce — not in a behavioristic sense that ‘this space will produce this behavior’ — but in the sense that the space is an availability which may be consummated fully by the being.

Arendt’s distinction between the public and the private corresponds to the two definitions of the word architecture. In the Oxford English Dictionary, these are: 1) ’the erection of edifices for human use’, and 2) ‘the action and process of building’. Process aligns with Arendt’s idea that labor is process, while work can create something which is both memorable and durable. But what's beautiful about this concept is that it opens to different degrees of expression in a work between something that is commemorative or symbolic, and other parts, even in the same building, which are much less so, and this makes possible a great range of expression.

McQuillan: I found very beautiful this sentence where you paraphrase Arendt:
In this regard with respect to memory, the homo faber hypothetically creates a world that is not only useful and durable, but also beautiful and memorable, as opposed to the animal laborans who in the conviction that life is the highest good, seeks only to lengthen the span of life and make the act of living easier and more comfortable.

It's incredibly precise with regard to its definition of power as something embedded in the memory. Such precision is fascinating in Arendt, given that in your search for the ontological, you might easily have gone back to Heidegger, whose sentences are often so muddy. Nonetheless, it seems that Arendt’s idea of appearance can be traced back to Heidegger’s idea of truth as unconcealment.

Frampton: And I think you can trace the same idea in Semper, in his notion of concealing and revealing, which clearly embodies a latent erotic aspect. However, Arendt argues in her final chapter, ‘The Victory of the Animal Laborans’, that labor is all-pervasive today and that we consume our houses and cars and like fruits of the earth which will perish if they are not immediately eaten.

"If the sustainability is not cultural, then it remains very fragile."

McQuillan: You mention that Arendt’s work presages the commodification of the environment, and you say that this is of particular consequence for architecture and sustainability inasmuch as it categorically opposes a state of affairs in which the environment is constantly on the verge of being overwhelmed by the proliferation of ‘unrelated, amortizable free-standing objects’.

Frampton: If the sustainability is not cultural, then it remains very fragile. You can’t simply depend on a technological fix, a LEED standard or whatever. But durability itself is already a crucial form of sustainability, although it is somehow seen as disconnected. However, there is an aspect to commodification which wants to screen out all of this. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry beautifully puts it — and I quote him in the front of Studies in Tectonic Culture — ‘We don’t ask to be eternal beings. We only ask that things do not lose all their meaning’.

The landscape of the Oslo airport at Gardermoentag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/stories/photo-stories/brodey-gardermoen-08/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Time is the most important dimension of landscape architecture. More than a decade has passed since Oslo's new main airport at Gardermoen was completed; the unique airport in the forest, where you roll your suitcases between pinetrees and lupins, in rain and in sunshine. Now the trees and the grass embracong roadways and buildings have grown. Did it turn out like we thought it would?

And if it didn't, then what did it become?

Arkitektur N asked photographer Ivan Brodey to look at places in the landscape around the airport. The photos were taken between August and December 2007.

Skådalen School from 1975 by Sverre Fehntag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/photo-stories/brodey-skaadalen-09/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Skådalen School was completed in 1975. It comprised dormitories, preschool, elementary and secondary school, administration and sports hall. “The scattered plan is a strategy that allows the residents to walk from their “homes” to school,” says Fehn in his text in Byggekunst no. 6-1978.

The architecture replaces the reverberation of sound with visual orientation. The buildings are as spatially open as possible, and they are designed for children: “The architect has to recognise your physical size,” Fehn continues. “You cannot accept a point of view that says the structure has to stand and wait, expecting you to grow and reach twenty-one years of age before you fit into the world. … No pedagogy can reach the child if the architecture does not recognise the child’s dimensions.”

The museum at Hamar by Sverre Fehntag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/photo-stories/binet-hamar-09/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The Hedmark Museum, also known as the Storhamar Barn, is one of Fehn’s best known works and unique in Norwegian post-war architecture. The design of various parts of the new museum building and the exhibitions followed Sverre Fehn through long periods of his career. It started in 1967, when the archaeological excavations were completed. The then director of the museum, Per Martin Tvengsberg, had been a student of Fehn at the Oslo School of Architecture, and Fehn was commissioned to do an initial design.

The works on site started in 1969, the barn was finished in 1971 and the south wing with the auditorium in 1973. The exhibitions were completed under the new director Ragnar Pedersen, and were completed in 1980. The pavilions in the castle courtyard were completed in 2005.

The commission to design the Ivar Aasen Centre was given to Sverre Fehn by the then Minister for Culture, Åse Kleveland, as an honorary assignment. The building was completed in 2000. The Centre contains a collection of Ivar Aasen’s belongings and a cultural centre for Nynorsk or New Norwegian, the formal dialect constructed by Aasen in the late 1800’s on the basis of his studies into rural Norwegian linguistics.

The building is dug into the hillside next to Aasen’s birthplace in Hovdebygda, and the clear structure gives form to Aasen’s work: “The space takes the form of entering between the pages of a book”, Fehn wrote in Byggekunst no. 1-2001.

The Witch Memorial at Steilnesettag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/photo-stories/eggen-steilneset-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

During the period 1600-1692, 91 people were convicted of witchcraft in Finnmark and burned to death at the stake, most of them here in Vardø. In this vast and barren landscape, Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois collaborated on the design of a monument commemorating the persecution and murder of these 91 people. On the cold plains of Finnmark, where the presence of people is still felt most strongly at night when light is lit in the windows of the houses that are still occupied, Zumthor conceived a long room stretching along the edge of the sea, with 91 lit windows.

Bourgeois added the burning; a metal chair lit by a gas flame and overlooked by a ring of seven large mirrors. She asked Zumthor to design the enclosure of blackened glass panels. The structure of this architectural commemoration is reduced to a minimum, and moves with the breezes from the sea.

The ski jumping arenas at Holmenkollentag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/photo-stories/brodey-holmenkollen-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Ivan Brodey's photographs of Holmenkollen received the The Norwegian Specialized Press Association's Award for Photography in 2012.

The government buildings in Oslo after the bombing on 22nd July 2011tag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/stories/photo-stories/brodey-regjeringsbygingen-11/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The government headquarters in Oslo, centered on the iconic vertical block from 1958 by architect Erling Viksjø, was bombed by a right-wing extremist in July 2011. The ongoing discussion about the future of the damaged structure has so far been polarised in two directions: to preserve it and restore it to its former state, or to tear it down to build something new. But there must be other answers: a process of healing is already taking place in the careful temporary wrapping of the building.

The city under construction. Bjørvika, Oslotag:www.architecturenorway.no,2012:/stories/photo-stories/brodey-bjorvika-12/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The urban development of the Bjørvika area of the Oslo harbour has been hotly debated. The construction of the row of imposing structures called "Barcode" has continued alongside the debate. But despite the many protests, this imposing development is part of a conscious political and urban strategy: This is what the city wants.

On the Roofs of New Yorktag:www.architecturenorway.no,2012:/stories/photo-stories/carlsen-rooftops-nyc-12/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

No one believes that you are ever going to feed the city by covering the rooftops with soil. But the landscape currently appearing on top of several of America’s biggest cities offers something even more vital than tomatoes and radishes. It offers us a new way of thinking the city.

In June the urban farms of New York are only just starting to sprout – professionals and volunteer New Yorkers bend over the neatly arrayed rows of lettuces, herbs, tomatoes, chillies and scores of other rooftop crops, weeding, feeding and watering. Chickens cluck contentedly against the Manhattan skyline, the bees are buzzing. Honey and fresh vegetables are sold way down below, by the door on the street. What is this? Yet another expression of middle-class naiveté in the face of the overwhelming statistics of urban ills? Or a new urban practice, profitable on more that just a financial level, spreading rapidly, with the potential to alter how we think the city?

Initiatives like Brooklyn Grange, a commercial farm which currently has 85 000 square feet of cultivated land above Brooklyn and Queens, or the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, the moveable farm of the Riverpark Restaurant, Gotham Greens and many others, seem to be upping the ante on a number of more or less hippie initiatives of previous decades. The new urban farming entrepreneurs bring a combination of business savvy and community involvement to their enterprises, coupled with an environmental awareness formed not only out of concern for the protection of the natural environment, but for human survival on the planet. New urban practices are no longer just a private matter; they are vital experiments yielding invaluable experience of how to make the city work better.

And as a piece of this new puzzle, farming the city has only just begun.

A Portrait of the Nationtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2014:/stories/photo-stories/riksportrett-14/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The art project A Portrait of the Nation

The assembly room at Eidsvoll and Oscar Wergeland’s portrait Eidsvold 1814 are inextricably linked, in the narrative of the birth of the nation as well as in the public mind. Today, the room has been restored to its assumed 1814 condition, whereas the painting was done 70 years after the 1814 event, with few reliable sources. The photographic work A Portrait of the Nation (after Eidsvold 1814) ties the rooms closer together by filling the historic room with a contemporary event.
Trying to match Wergeland’s artistic interpretations with the real room is about finding a point between illusion and reality. The space in the painting is not perspectivally real, neither is the space of the photograph. These ambiguities gave the new version a necessary freedom.

The people in the photograph

The people in the photograph are us. 112 of us, the same as the number of representatives in that first constitutional assembly, as shown in Oscar Wergeland’s painting from 1885, but the people in the photograph represent Norway in 2014.
We are as many women as men, 57 of us are working age, two unemployed, six students. Only one farmer. Most of us are ethnic Norwegians, 13 with immigrant backgrounds, mostly from Poland. One is Saami. Six are queer, one pregnant.
The people in the photograph live in Norway.

Images of the new Norway – Anders Beer Wilse’s photographytag:www.architecturenorway.no,2015:/stories/photo-stories/wilse-15/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Norwegian photographer Anders Beer Wilse (1865-1949) has played an important part in the shaping of Norway’s national self-image. He is perhaps most famous for documenting Norway’s landscape and its natural and urban life, but he also worked as a photographer for many major Norwegian companies – among them Norsk Hydro. In a current exhibition at the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology, Wilse’s work for these companies is presented on a larger scale than ever before.

Other Storiestag:www.architecturenorway.no,2017:/stories/other-stories/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

An introduction to the Oslo Operatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/stories/other-stories/iha-on-opera-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

On a distant planet stands a building. No one knows who built it. It is the only building on the planet, and it stands alone, surrounded by dust and sand. There are no winds blowing across this planet, which could have lifted the dust and piled it up along whatever walls or columns there might be, gathered it in corners and cracks. The sand does not whisper across what might be a floor. No one has seen this building. No one knows about it. Perhaps it is the most beautiful thing ever built. But no one has walked through what might be a door. No one cares. It doesn’t matter. On a distant planet stands a building. It may be beautiful, but it does not exist.

Architecture is not an abstraction. It comes into being the moment someone opens their eyes; when it meets the body. There is no such thing as pure form in architecture: As a building meets life, the world grabs hold of what is built and shapes it, tugs at it, disturbs and gets involved. And this is not something that happens the moment someone moves in, or when a ribbon is cut – it is not a question of opening galas or of buying tickets. The world is there the moment a few people sit down around a table to talk about a building that might be built. After all, we are on earth. Perhaps there are architects around the table, perhaps not – in fact, it doesn’t really matter. But around that table, people talk of a reality that might come to be. They think about things that might exist, things that ought to be different. And as they sit down, each and every one of them bring with them their experiences and expectations, they spread them out and pass them around, comparing them with everyone else’s. Perhaps there are several conversations going on, around several tables.

If they decide to hold an open architectural competition, as in the case of the new opera house in Oslo, there will be a short time when hundreds of conversations take place, around hundreds of tables; and all these conversations will lead to different results. Of these, someone chooses the one conversation that is to continue. Again, there are not necessarily architects chairing that meeting, but after a while the architects make drawings, and the many lines on these drawings start to impose some limitations on the conversation. Architects easily become obsessed with these limits, with their drawings. Not just because boundless conversation rarely is compatible with tight time schedules, but also because these lines, which after a while are turned into structures and materials, also trace the physical limits of what we call archi­tectonic form. This form means something; it has an expression, which the architects are trying to control. Perhaps they are even trying to express something particular, something they care deeply about. But artistic expression through architectonic form is extremely demanding. It is demanding enough just trying to make sure that the conversations that have taken place somehow have an effect on the final organisation of physical reality.

So buildings appear through a jumble of different conversations. But then, at some point, the final stone is set in place. The people who have taken part in the building work, pack up their tools, and the people who have not been building are allowed in. Is this the point when the building is finished? Or is it finished the moment it no longer exists, when it is spent, useless, razed to the ground? The images we carry of finished buildings appear to be images of distinct physical objects, unified and coherent; perhaps even conscious compositions, with clear functional and legal boundaries. Or are they? Where are the actual limits of a building? When I walk from the airport train terminal, across the road and onto the opera roof, at what point am I crossing that limit? On the bridge? At the starting point of the roof, marked by an almost invisible shift in the angle of a white slab of marble?

“Have you been to the opera”, people in Oslo have been asking each other this summer. What they mean is: “Have you been on the opera”, they are not talking about attending a performance. “Going to the opera” means walking on the roof, or perhaps through the foyer; that is the experience. Because it is there, crossing the roof, that our bodies create architecture. The building continues, of course, through the door, across the floor, into the stage areas and the workshops and the auditorium, where the light is dimmed and sound fills the space. But it begins in the first meeting of body and stone. That is the first thing, and it is for everyone. It makes us equal.

We dream of the building on the distant planet, of the shining floors, the walls and the columns rising out of the dust. But it is not there. The world is always there ahead of us. The new opera in Oslo began long ago, before the architects of Snøhetta started architecture school, in fact, before any of them were even born. What the architects of Snøhetta were thinking as they bent over the competition project, and as they arrived at design meetings through the many years from 1999 to 2008, is a consequence of thoughts that people have had before them, both architects and others. Those thoughts, and all the thoughts that this new building will provoke, are part of our lives, of our culture, of the way we live. Culture connects us with other people across time and space. Culture is what makes a book you have not even read have a decisive impact on your life. Through others.

Architecture is the same. It does not consist of singular discreet objects. Architecture is an activity, something we do, all the time – it accompanies people and their history in a continuous stream. It is this stream, this culture, the way people live their lives, today, which will appear in the white building in Bjørvika Bay and make it into something. Into a new way of saying something. A poem for the body. A new part of our very long history.

Photographic portraits have been mounted in the mirrors at five of the toilets at Vestfold University College, portraits that are only visible as you approach the mirror. They represent heroes from the different study areas of the college; well-known authorities within their fields. They have historical significance, but are still “alive” today, and point the way into the future.

When you get close, they overlap your own mirror image, creating a meeting in time and space – a space for reflection, in both senses of the word.

Qr-codes on the shelves in the college library where works of the five heroes are found, take you to the project website, creating further connections.

The Gardentag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/stories/other-stories/garden-2013/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Installation in Elgeseter gate 30B, part of the exhibition “Constant. Decay”

The installation “The Garden” is a baroque garden constructed inside two rooms of an empty apartment on the third floor of a condemned building in Elgeseter gate in Trondheim, scheduled for demolition for many years. The work is a comment on how ideologies manifest themselves in the visual and architectonic expressions of our surroundings, and refers to the ideological vacuum that seems to appear just before something collapses. It can also be read as a comment on the role of the private dwelling as a status monument.

Transformation of a substationtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/stories/other-stories/trafo-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

At the heart of a backyard of a housing complex from 1920, a former electricity substation, a transformer, had been locked for 85 years. With the help of a lot of the local residents, architects Haugen/Zohar initiated a project to move the electrical plant into an underground bunker and transform the substation building into a shared common room for the block.

Today, the 75 sq.m. building contains a common room, kitchen, bathroom and a mezzanine for overnight guests. The "Trafo" is used for 75% of the week, and hosts all kind of events for all ages.

Greetings From Fukushimatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/stories/other-stories/greetings-2013/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Following the presentation in Arkitektur N no. 4-2013 of Toyo Ito’s project Home-For-All in Rikuzentakata, Margrethe Aas tells the story of an art project in the Fukushima region, also aimed at helping local people to deal with the post-tsunami situation.

Together with artists Vigdis Haugtrø from Norway and Su Grierson from Scotland, Aas was invited by the Japanese artist Yoshiko Maruyama to propose a project for the small town of Kitakata, an agricultural area where people from Fukushima were forcibly moved after the disaster.

Reaching back into the region’s agricultural past, the artists reconstructed a small kura, a local storehouse, as a meeting place to share reflections and personal stories, acknowledging a traumatic experience that has become a shameful thing for many people. An architecture of restoration.

Philip Beesley's installation “Hylozoic Ground” is an artificial environment made from thousands and thousands of very small, light, digitally fabricated components, microprocessors and sensors. A combination of chemistry and mechanics brings this forest to life: the glassy, transparent elemets react to light, humidit and touch, and move slowly through a system of leaves, whiskers and filters. And throughout the system trickles the waters of the Venetian lagoon.

The Most Beautiful House in the Worldtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2012:/stories/other-stories/most-beautiful-house-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

For their 2012 architecture thesis project, Bye and Sendstad were fascinated with the character of structures we normally think of as useless. They put an ad in the local paper and visited a 30 abandoned houses and interviewed the owners, many of whom were ashamed of the buildings they were no longer able to maintain. They were seemingly faced with two choices: restoration to the original, or a complete modernisation. Bye and Senstad argues for a third approach – restoring and developing parts, even where time has left the totality behind.
Their thesis structure is not a conclusion, it was an experiment. But similar methods may allow us to make better use of and develop the qualities of an existing building, and to challenge the attitude that a building is at its best the day it is first completed. Rather, they argue, building could be an open and positive process, a gradual cultivation of our surroundings.

Brown Snake in a White Casket, a poem about the Oslo Operatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/stories/other-stories/mollerhaug-snake-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

White casket
by the sea.

Casket of salt.
Casket of sugar.
Casket of bone.

The brown snake
in the white casket.
Glides in oil, makes not a sound.

A casket of bone, salt
and sugar
by the water.

Arias.
High.
Low.
In the snake acoustics.
Venom gathered
in a sun.

The sun
hangs under the ceiling above us.
Clean light free from venom.

Undress.
Bathe in the sun as you sing.
The sun gives light to the whole
stage and the whole hall.
The tenor breaks
the bread asunder
The bass throws the bread to the people.
Soprano looking to the snake.
Alto looking to the snake.

The snake eats no bread.

White casket
by the sea.

A brown snake
in the white casket.

Now shut your mouth.
You will eat, and no singing.

White casket
by the sea.

A brown snake
in the white casket.

After a night
at the opera
the mind is
glossed with oil.

Concentrated oil
quiet.

After a night
at the opera
the walls
are
glossed with oil.

Oil where the snake glides without
sound.

Oil in the
dark churches:

Oil in Urnes

Oil in Heddal

Oil in Ulvik

Oil in these walls.

Oil in Uvdal

Oil in Røldal

Oil in Hopperstad

Oil in Rødven

Oil in these walls.

Oil in Kaupanger

Oil in Stange

Oil in Reinli

Oil in Nore

Oil in these walls.

Oil in Bø

Oil in Mære

Oil in these walls.

Oil in the dark churches

Oil in these walls.

Nicholas Møllerhaug

Skådalen School – A Spatial Narrativetag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/other-stories/skadalen-fuchs-mikac-2009/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Photography is not the right medium to represent architecture. It can never do everything that plans, sections and detailed drawings can do. The intention behind showing this series of 16 colour and black-white images of Sverre Fehn’s Skådalen School for deaf children, is not just to document different aspects of its architecture in time and place. Here, photography is used as a narrative agent, describing things and situations in a way similar to storytelling. By recording the visible, in the same way as you would describe it with words, photography here attempts to uncover hidden values and to influence, renew and even change our perception of Fehn’s architecture.

The architecture of Skådalen School appears quite different from other of Fehn’s works. It is perhaps one of the most complex buildings he has ever done; perhaps due to a demanding architectural program, the institutional rehabilitation of deaf children, quite unique in Scandinavia and in the world at the time it was built, in 1975. The architecture presents a robust, non-formalist architectural language, exact and clear, based on the sculptural power of self-evident construction and a strong material presence. The elementary feel of its tectonics and the interplay between the architectural bodies and the body of the landscape create an experience that is quite rare in architecture today. But strangely enough, the project was not very widely published, and as time passed it remained relatively unknown to the wider public and to the new generations of younger architects.

While most of Fehn’s well-known buildings posses clear iconic value, that can be grasped in one strong photographic image, this quality is completely absent from the architecture of the Skådalen School. It is really impossible to present this architecture with just one image. The task becomes challenging for a photographer: How, then, should he understand it, observe and photo­graph it? It became necessary to depart from the single image, and to define the precise group of properties to work with: The energy of architectural elements, inside and outside, in a subtle relation to each other and to the landscape, to the weather and to the evening light… The photographer had to search for another structure, to use the potential of a photograph to transport the viewer into a fictional world of spaces, and to open up a new story. Even where there was no obvious narrative except the one traced by the use of the building, a photograph can invite the viewer to explore and to experiment.

In 2010, two young Norwegian surfers, Inge Wegge and Jørn Nyseth Ranum, decided to spend the winter on the beach of a cove facing the harsh weathers of the Northern Sea. They brought their surf boards, hammer and nails, but otherwise they planned to live off the surplus of others: eat out-of-date food from nearby shops, and build a winter house from materials washed up by the sea.

The house is nestled behind a huge boulder. The walls of the basic timber structure are made with an inner layer of timber boards, sealed with plastic sheet and insulated with empty plastic bottles set in sand. The roof is covered with turf. The wood burner is made from an oil drum, and the chimney from a bit of an old metal buoy.

"Rosarium" – An instrument and a floor grilletag:www.architecturenorway.no,2006:/stories/other-stories/rosarium-2005/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Over a year and a half Helene Stub produced 1000 candied roses. The process is laborious: The flowers collapse completely and must be reconstructed, petal by petal. The finished roses are very delicate.

In working with the roses, a political space appears: a potential space for action. In striving to attain goals, to get somewhere particular, we might, accidentally or knowingly, be stepping on someone.

There is always a choice.

"Let loose the sheep", a poem about the urban commontag:www.architecturenorway.no,2012:/stories/other-stories/mollerhaug-common-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

you.
just walk here, freely. you. you can just walk, completely free. where you want. to where you want
let loose your sheep
let loose your dogs
let loose the sheep
let loose the dog

take the cat
take the ferret
take the kindergarten
take the children
take others that you don’t usually take
if you want to start over.

you can walk round and round
here.
you can sit
here.
you can gather yourself
here.
or
you can gather your friends
at just this point.
at this place.
gather them around this point
in this space

here, you can meet other gazes, without intrusion
here, you can see others, in other lives
you can gather yourself here, at this point

run train lie march cry bleed jump dance die and walk
look
everything else the other

but just so you know:
there might be walls around.
there might be roads around.
there might be mounds around
there might be ditches around
there might be oceans around
there might bu noise around
just so you know.

the wind still rules all open spaces
the wind still rules
the wind still rules all commons
all commons in the world
absolutely all commons

the more open the space the greater the risk
the more open the space the greater the risk of wind

in trieste for instance
in haugesund for instance
in calcutta for instance

in trieste for instance at the great long wide piazza
called piazza del popolo
where the cruel wind the cruel cold north wind
la bora
steals down the massive mountain and bores into the cafes
lifts tablecloths and skirts and uniforms.
in haugesund for instance on the town hall square where
raw wind constantly teases the pink candy house
with raw air
and then the maidan in calcutta
a giant imperial green – part piazza part park – displaced miles away days away
away from queen victoria.

and then the market common in bergen.
they say it’s the biggest piazza north of milan
the place where the accordion rules
the place where the long sour pan pipes rule
the piazza where aggression rules
the place where the dulcimers rule, hammering the final countdown
in the crowns of king Alcohol
choirs crowd on crowd on crowd parade after parade after parade fill the space
with power, pomp and power. summer seasons filled
with parades drums.
a vast stone-paved area filled to the brim with drumming rascals
uniformed rascals. a tradition only broken during the war
when other rascals were there.
a vast stone-paved area filled with national costumes
a vast stone-paved celebration of heating cables
or vast gatherings of cars from america that fill the common. and large men looking
at their bikes.

the open space can be a place filled with energy
energy from all the people who just walk and hum
carefully, silently. the wonderful thing about open free space
open free areas
is you can really hum as much as you like.
as long as you like.
as loud as you like

An Attempt to Understand Sverre Fehntag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/other-stories/iha-on-fehn-2009/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

There has always been a great deal about Sverre Fehn’s architecture that I feel I’ve never been able to understand. The two sleighs in the exhibition at the Hedmark Museum for example, that have been hung on either side of a large plate of steel. Two white sleighs, hung vertically against each other. Why? So many of the other things in that exhibition are so obvious. – It has to do with death, with the end, says my colleague Einar Bjarki Malmquist. Apparently he heard it once in a lecture. Death?

And that entrance façade at the Ivar Aasen Centre, where the section of building the meets the approach and the glazing fills the concrete vault with a kind of prism of timber and glass. What is that? Where is the logic, in structure or in form? It has never made sense to me.

We made an issue of Arkitektur N about the architecture of Sverre Fehn (1924–2009). It is not a catalogue of works, nor is it a summary. In fact, this issue is also something like a prism – different voices recall, in texts and images, their meetings with the man Sverre Fehn and his architecture, different views into the worlds Fehn has left behind.
It is easy to lean on the superlatives when you talk about Fehn. You will find many superlatives in this issue. A very small number of the people who give form to buildings, just a handful of the world’s architects, succeed in making architecture into an art. In a small country like Norway, there is maybe one such artist per generation. Sverre Fehn was one of them. The people we have invited to contribute to this issue give different insights into why this is so, what they think Fehn brought to the art of architecture, to the world.

Fehn’s practice no longer exists, so there is no one there to answer the phone when the magazines call for pictures and drawings. So for once, we had to get our own. We have selected three buildings from different parts of Fehn’s production, and sent three photographers to bring us a new view of places that might be familiar to many of our readers. These pictures are not directed by architects, no one has accompanied the photographers and requested angles and selected views. This seemed the right way to do it – all this work, all Fehn’s buildings, are part of a larger reality. There is no longer an official version, if in deed there ever was.

In a way, these pictures all show the truth about the buildings, in as much as this is how it was when the shutter opened. In another way, they are a series of lies, of selected and manipulated views; small sections of everything that was there, the edited experience of the photographer. But Fehn’s architecture has room for all these views. When I can’t understand the end façade of the Aasen Centre, it is because there are actually many ways to understand it. This is the key to an architecture of transcendence, that continues to be active in the meeting of people and places long after the last thought has left the mind of the architect. Such an architecture demands our participation, and it changes us.

On the last page of one of Fehn’s note­books from 1970 a comment has been added. After a few hours in the archives of the National Museum in Oslo, where these notebooks are kept, you realise that he must have done this often – read through his notebooks and added new thoughts and associations in and around the other words, with a new pen, in a different colour. In this case, he has been looking through one of the books from 1970 three years later, and on the last page he writes:

“23. of January 1973
A long time has passed…
But the problems are more or less the same. What matters is to give form to what is already in us. To find an expression for the harmonious union of impulsive and intentional behavior.
In our formless existence - without fixed rituals of any sort, there is little reason to have confidence in the impulsive actions. Meditation on the various problems is neces­sary in order to solve them in a morally justifiable way.”

The emphasis is Fehn’s own. Here, he states it himself: “What matters is giving form to what is already in us”. “In us”. “Morally justifiable”. These are not the words of an artist whose aim is personal expression, but of a man who sees himself and his work as part of something bigger.

In his grapplings with the world, Fehn was blissfully unprejudiced. Both in his own words and in what has already been interpreted and published, for example in the books of Per Olaf Fjeld, it is obvious that Fehn’s eyes always remained open. “He was the youngest man I have ever known”, writes Juhani Pallasmaa. A colleague once told me of a study trip he had taken with Fehn, where the students from their train window had suddenly spotted a person in a very conspicuous but particularly unflattering bright yellow quilted jacket. There was hollering and pointing at the ugly jacket, verdict was immediately passed and both the jacket and its owner were of course excluded from what had been collectively defined as aesthetically acceptable. Fehn, too, looked out of the window. – Yes, that was really yellow! was his only comment. Not ugly. Not stupid. Just yellow. And still a part of a world where everything is a potential source of a deeper understanding of human beings.

“What matters is to give form to what is already in us.” There is nothing simple about this – neither in knowing or trying to find out what is in us, nor in giving it form.

“Not ugly. Not stupid. Just yellow. And still a part of a world where everything is a potential source of a deeper understanding of human beings.”

The other word Fehn has underscored is the word Meditation. Meditation? What did he mean by that? But as you leaf through his notes the same questions reappear again and again, the same figures and the same themes year after year. The sketches of the cave, the animal or the bird repeated again and again, as drawn mantras. The bird flying across a landscape, landing in a tree – on page after page after page. Ten, fifteen pages of almost identical drawings. These drawn meditations do not find their value as the objects of admiration. The sketch­books are not meant for communication, these drawings are not made for other people, to be cast into concrete or printed on t-shirts. The repetition of the cave drawing is the trace of a deeply personal pursuit, a meditation on a lingering question, in order to arrive at a morally justifiable answer.

Fehn’s meditations are over. His thoughts can not, should not, be “carried on” by others. But his works, his art, his architecture still demands of us that we take responsibility. Responsibility for our meeting with objects, structures, landscape; for the meeting with other people and for what needs to be done, both in his buildings and elsewhere.

Much has already been said and written about Sverre Fehn. We have tried not to repeat it here. But in a way, none of these texts are about Fehn; they are about the authors themselves. Each of them have found something of themselves in the mee­ting with Fehn or with what he has built. “We love what´s in us”, says Glen Murcutt, “Through the work of others we recognise what we are”.

As the above quote from the notebook shows, Fehn was also aware of these mecha­nisms. “What matters is to give form to what is already in us”. And in his speech at the Pritzker Prize award ceremony, he said: “Within himself, each man is an architect”. In the world and in the people around us we see ourselves. This insight can perhaps give a sense of isolation, or spark a kind of egocentric reaction: If I only see myself everywhere, then I can never really understand what other people are, so I might as well just be concerned with myself and follow my own vagaries, whatever they happen to be. But of course we’re not going to be let off that easily. And this is where Sverre Fehn’s architecture, where any great architecture, raises its demands. Rather than cultivating eccentricity or originality, Fehn pursued the universal. Not as a style or as an architectonic recipe, but as a subjective expression, his own expression, of a common human understanding of our way through the world. That we see ourselves in each other is not something that traps us within the walls of some individual existential isolation. Fehn’s architecture is both specific and universal, and it is a measure of how much of reality we actually share.

The Megaphonetag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/stories/other-stories/megaphone-2010/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The Megaphone is a gift from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to the city of Trondheim on the occasion of NTNU’s 100th anniversary. It was developed by students at the NTNU architecture school, and erected in a public park.

The Megaphone is an 18 metre long cut cone made of 3 mm steel sheets, mounted on eight columns. The exterior is painted white, while the interior is painted with high gloss black, which makes it reflect light and colour as well as sound. Acoustically, the Megaphone with its 6-metre maximum diameter catches and transmits sounds from the environment, as well as working as an enormous, well, megaphone.

A look behind the scenes at the Oslo Operatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/stories/other-stories/norsted-on-opera-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

The building from the outside. So far that has been the strongest image of the new opera for many people. The roof with all the people walking on the white marble. A huge, white sea mammal basking in the sun at the edge of the fjord. After a while other elements have stuck in people’s consciousness as well: the organic timber wall, the main hall, the white foyer, the stage curtain and the chandelier. The Ole Ivars dance hall band has already been on stage. But even if most people seem to like being in or around the building, it has not been designed by popular vote…

There are no sausages and mashed potato here. Oh no, there will be canapés and croissants, champagne and caffe latte in the white marble surroundings. Good taste all around. Almost like a project to cultivate the Norwegian people. It is easy to forget that it began with opera and ballet.

"We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." (Willy Wonka, in the hallway
with the lickable wallpaper).1

When I was little, on one of those rare occasions when there was opera on telly, I used to think: Please please disappear, I’ll give you my whole candy bag. It mauled your eardrums and the screen was a flicker of large grimacing faces, sweat and suffering, done up in strange clothes and pompous stage sets.

However, I now see it differently. There is something old fashioned, liberating and very human taking place in that strange format. Is there anywhere else where you can express grander emotions than in opera? The singers are sprawled on the floor in emotional ecstasy, shrouded in rolling fog. Their nostrils… vibrating with the purest sensation. Could you tear your clothes off? Yes! Frrratsch – there goes the shirt. The audience jump to their feet in spontaneous acclaim. Tears flow freely… But in the most impeccable taste. Of course.

But what is actually happening behind the stage curtain of the new opera in Bjørvika? Because if your look at the sheer size of the building, there is much more building behind the scenes than in front. And what does it actually take to make opera? I feel like I’m entering Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory as I walk excitedly towards the staff entrance. To the part of the opera where people are working.

"If your look at sheer size, there is much more building behind the scenes than in front."

When I finally enter the back-of-house area it is like entering a mid-size office building. There are no oompa-loompas, just ordinary people. Glitter and finery is conspicuously absent. There is little of the extravagant atmosphere in the foyer. Is this it, I’m thinking as I walk down the linoleum floor of one of the corridors. But then, PANG, around the first corner I am suddenly surrounded by a swarm of tiny ballet dancers. It is the ballet school passing by… There is a school in here as well? I begin to understand that I have really no idea of what to expect. Behind each of the closed doors there is another surprise. It is like a village in here, where everyone is working on something different and quite specific. Behind one door they are making wigs, behind another there is make-up, and then costumes, laundries etc. etc. Granted, there is no river of chocolate carrying you from place to place in a candy ship, like in Wonka’s place, but there is no doubt that I am in a strange and unique universe of functions and activities.

"I am in a strange and unique universe of functions and activities."

By and large, the design in here is modest, apart from some very nice rehearsal spaces for dancers and musicians. Even if most of these workspaces either have a view into the wide, black atrium or of the spectacular expanse of the fjord and the city, this part of the building is pretty labyrinthine. If it wasn‘t for all the strange people I keep bumping into, these corridors could be running through pretty much any building. But here, I meet ballet dancers with this clear, glassy, melancholy look in their eyes that only ballet dancers have. I meet rounded, smiling musicians. Singers gargling behind half open doors. Clowns. Costume ladies weaving around with a wardrobe on wheels, shouting and laughing. A little man with a large instrument case running as fast as he can – late, again! The dancer in pointe shoes looks like she’s lost. From time to time the people working here trip over workmen, lurking in corners fixing the final few screws. But people still look happy – happy and busy.

The stage areas are a world of their own. Here, the technicians in the hoodies rule. They swear and show off. It occurs to me that all the machinery, with computer controlled lighting rigs and stage sets are like a gigantic toy. There, yes, up a bit. Turn it, ahead 10 cm, back 5 cm. Hollering and garbled messages in a walkie-talkie. They steer the lifts and the rigs and try to look all serious and indifferent, like proper people doing an important job. Well, they are, but they can’t hide the fact that they are also having a fantastic time. The premiere is tomorrow, a lot of things have to be in place and it all depends on them.

There are exciting things behind the doors on most floors. Rooms full of sheet music, musicians’ dressing rooms with tailcoats and bow ties. Messy workshops, costume storage, woodworking tools. Some of the doors have glass in them. On the top floor you can see Willy Wonka himself, opera manager Bjørn Simensen, bent over some important papers. Around him there is a whole entourage of information- and administration workers, smartly dressed. Beside his office is the canteen. This is where they all meet: Kings, knife throwers, accountants, clowns, wig makers, ladykillers, ticket clerks, flautists, oopa-loompas, painters, prop managers, witches, choreographers, angels, children, weight lifters and everyone else, thinkable and unthinkable – hungry and thirsty. What a place to work, I think. To an outsider it looks suspiciously like too much fun. A lot of stress and backbreaking work, of course. Late nights and all that. But what amazing richness.

I walk around, enviously spying on people rehearsing. In one room there are two tired types. A man and a woman. Exhausted from trying to conjure a non-existent love? Some strange music is plinking in the background. Pling plongo plong plongo pling. It is not helping. GO HOME. Joyful singing comes out of room 2. «Kovvi kovvi mooone.» What does it mean? Three Balkan men are circling a fourth, a completely white man who is singing in some incomprehensible language. Are they singing of peace? Of the love that is to save us from all evil? But, guys, why not look a little more cheerful? One of the men looks about 75. After a few intense dance moves it becomes obvious that the main singer is also a bit long in the tooth. This will take practice. On, on, next room. Oh my, a fig leaf costume! The singer is twittering away, until she sits down at a tiny piano and takes a break with the classic «Old MacDonald had a farm». This cheers me up. Opera does not appear out of nowhere, I think, maliciously.

Finally I am left in the main theatre, letting all the experiences settle. There is a tree hanging upside down on stage. But of course. This is where you could do such a thing. It feels almost as if I have been to a long festival, I am numbed by impressions. Numbed, even if I have only seen and talked to a few of the more than six hundred people involved in the day-to-day running of this place. The inhabitants of the worlds beyond the curtain. The workers of sugar and chocolate.

From the movie ”Willy Wonka &amp; the Chocolate Factory” (1971). Director: Mel Stuart, script: Roald Dahl. (In the hallway with lickable wallpaper) WONKA: ”We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”
From ”Ode” by Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844–1881):
”We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.”&#160;&#8617;

The Oslo Opera – a New House in the Citytag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/stories/other-stories/olin-on-opera-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

There is a new house in the city. Everyone is talking about it. Now, when you come to Oslo, you have to see this house. And not just see it, even better, walk on and over it, around and in it. Like an anthill, I thought in those first days when they opened the building to outsiders, and it sucked in both citizens and guests.

I like that it is where it is. Just where someone who really wants to take Oslo in ought to be. Arrival and departure. This is the neighbourhood of dreams. Exit Oslo. Those who have always wanted to get away, from someone or something, who live in these streets, where this white cathedral is now opening Oslo to the fjord. What an immigrant! A monumental mastodon that has laid itself down with the greatest of ease at the edge of the fjord and taken over everything.

The tourists stand with their backs to the city and the neighbourhood, taking pictures of the newcomer. Marble and glass. The birds have a new white mountain to look out from. The condoms are forgotten, ground into the gravel by the wheels of many trucks. The holding patterns of punters and prostitutes are gone. The sound of idling cars, low music on the radio, a woman holding her breath to avoid smelling a man she does not know, as he whispers to her his most secret desires. The quiet rustle of money taken from a pocket, unfolded, changing hands, counted. New appointments made, whispers and shouts in the cold nights along the quay. All this is gone. There are blank sheets in this part of town. An iceberg laid across the raw reality. A bridge over the motorway. You walk along a narrow path, purged, leaving the blind Oslo behind and entering the Norwegian landscape. The hard, clean surfaces you know from home, the light of the white glacier hitting your eyes. There is a new house in the city, and it is clad in the national garb of Norway. Everyone talks about architecture. About the surfaces, about where the marble comes from, about how much oak was used. They have made the door low, not high, and the gates narrow, not wide. The whole idea is for you to leave the blind city behind. But inside we keep talking. There are woollen hangings on the walls of the rehearsal rooms, there are 5800 crystals in the largest chandelier in the country, and the acoustics make people cry. PJ Harvey’s voice reached us through 70 speakers. It is Norwegian. It is big. It is grand. It is like climbing the ragged mountains of the west coast.

But then. Welcome. People are working here. 550 people, in hard and soft workshops. 52 professions. Some of them sew, some paint, some build. There is movement in every room. Someone sings behind the glass. A body is working. Again and again until the muscle is holding her up so long that time is no more. When the body can no longer be felt, when the song can no longer be heard, when the scenery is no longer seen and the mask no longer felt. Then it is time for a meeting. Someone gives, and someone receives. And it no longer matters where we are. For that is the strange thing. That is why this house was built. Only this way can art be passed on. It is passed form the finest, the softest place inside a person to someone else, another human being, to an audience, to you. From someone else’s subconscious to yours. You feel happy because you are touched. You can feel that you want to go home and do everything differently, because you are touched. And maybe you are in turmoil, because you suddenly feel at one with something nameless, something grand, which also exists inside you. It might be a long time since you felt just that. It is hope, stirring inside you.

That is when I am glad the opera house is where it is. All settlers should see their neighbourhood this way. As art saves what is human in us, dreams are injected daily under the motorway, the last refuge of the displaced addicts. The two are the same: something you do to survive. The unbearable lightness of being at the royal courts of 16th century Europe, where opera was first performed, or the brutal conduct of modern Oslo towards the homeless and the poor.

This state where you are no longer quite awake. You have gone somewhere beyond. Where the forests are always singing. And the clear, white ice shoots up from the sea and lifts you right into the sky. Bought on the streets or in the box office at the opera.

One day. On a stage in Norway. The stories of our time will be told.

There is a new house in the city.

The raw reality also needs a roof. Can someone announce an architectural competition for that?

When Picasso showed us the Negro sculpture and said: ”This is reality to us”, he might as well at that moment have signed it. It was a work of creation. He says it himself: ”I find, and I am in what I find”.

The same thing happened to Le Corbusier when he stood with the new material, concrete, in his hands and saw a new image of modern man. He suddenly saw the primitive masonry architecture. In fact, it became identical to his own world of form.

And suddenly a new world existed. The interest focused on how the negroes of Central Africa smeared the clay onto bamboo, how the Japanese laid the logs of his little dwelling house, how ”inside” and ”outside” were composed, how the ”natural space” was the main theme in the design of houses and urban communities.
That was in the 20’s.

Travelling south to French Morocco today, to study primitive masonry architecture, is not a journey of discovery to find new things. You recognize. This is how Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses in Taliesin must seem. Dissolved in the same way, and with the same roughness in their material structure. And this is how Mies van der Rohe’s walls must be. The same character of endlessness. And here is Le Corbusier’s poem of the terrace and the roof in the modern city plan. It has, in short, become required reading. A means to penetrate deeper into an understanding of modern architecture.

And the primitive seems as clear and logical in its structure as nature itself. It is blissfully free of speculation. Here is how they plan and build their towns.

"Travelling south to French Morocco today, to study primitive masonry architecture, is not a journey of discovery to find new things. You recognize."

Along rivers and oases there are fertile areas in the desert. The soil is cultivated as far as the river can feed the fields with water. The tilled earth is so valuable to the inhabitants, that they build their little towns and communities in the desert sand a little way away from the cultivated fields.

There are no roads in our understanding of the word, as they do not use wagons. The desert plain carries all traffic between the towns, as an ocean carries all traffic between islands. The natives leave the oases or the towns on their camels and donkeys, following the stars and the sun. And the towns get their particular expressions from the rhythm of this traffic. Their form is absolutely free, not given by their relation to a road, as our towns are. And the theoretical limits of their expansion are as vast as the desert plain itself.

A section through the town tells us the following. At the outskirts, low enclosures for animals, then small storehouses for the animal feed. The dwellings are grouped in the core of the town. Ground floor is for storage, or it is used as a workspace for the Arabs in the summer when the heat and the light become too strong. These rooms are cool, because the walls are thick. On the first floor the food is usually prepared, and if there is a second floor, this is the sleeping- and living room. The rooms are practically unfurnished.

"Ground floor is for storage, or it is used as a workspace for the Arabs in the summer when the heat and the light become too strong. These rooms are cool, because the walls are thick."

When you go to bed at night, a straw mat is rolled out for you on the floor, and you are given a blanket for cover.
If you are eating, you take off your shoes, sit down on the mats that are laid out, and a small, low table is brought in with the food. The furnishing is mobile. When the whole eating ceremony is over, the room is empty again. Something of the mobility of a nomad culture remains. It feels like our own ”Breakfast on the grass”.

You suddenly feel that the purpose of walls is not just to carry a roof or to ”make” a house, but that in one moment they are made to create shade, the next to be your back rest, in the autumn the rack for drying dates, in the spring a blackboard for children to draw on.

It is the same with the roof and the floor. All the different parts of a house are objects for use.

All these elements join in a free, rhythmical dance around the open and the closed spaces. They move around you as a spatial sculpture. This has nothing to do with naivism, with Henri Rousseau. Nothing European, where the house poses in the consciousness like some creature. Where the roof is a hat, the windows are eyes and the door a mouth. Arab children were never able to make a drawing of the house they lived in.

Here is a regional use of materials. The houses literally grow out of the ground they are built on. For example: The desert town is built in the sand. To the sand is added a certain quantity of water, and then it is pressed into a standardised wooden mould for a few days, and then the sun does the rest of the work. And this wooden mould is the module of the town. Its dimensions are given by how quickly and practically this cube of wet clay can dry. When using such a building method, a house is never technically a finished entity. It can bee extended in all directions at any time.

"All these elements join in a free, rhythmical dance around the open and the closed spaces. They move around you as a spatial sculpture."

With its single material, this architecture has no other ”effect” than the eternal shifts of light and shadow. The colour of the town is the same as that of the earth. The only thing that makes us notice the houses at all, is that they form another angle with the sunlight than the ground they are standing on.

The mountain town is made by following the same regional principles as the communities in the desert. But here, the ”Natural space” is different, and the ground is stone and rock. This changes their character completely. As the walls of the house are laid, stone upon stone, their rhythm by necessity conforms to that of the mountain.

You can compare primitive and modern architecture. You can look at it as a subject in its own right and analyse it. It seems clear and simple. But why? When it exists in a culture that seems so vastly removed from ours.
If you sat in southern Morocco for two years, blindfolded, just listening, feeling the scent of the nature and the people, and then took off your blindfold, you would have learned nothing.

You would be just as much of a stranger when the Arabs sit quietly waiting for the sun to dry the water out of a river after a shower of rain. It will still be a riddle to you why no one lays down a few planks so they can walk across.

You would still wander unaffected through the listening crowds of a market, and see men gripped in a ridiculous ecstasy by a primitive music, some dancing until they foam at the mouth.

You could admire the beauty of their clothing. Their masterly treatment of the fabric, but if you were to wear it yourself, you would feel uncomfortable because you would know that it makes it impossible for you to run fast.

"The only answer to the clarity and simplicity of the architecture, is that it exists in a culture that seems timeless to us."

And when you walk in the valleys at sunset and hear the hoarse cries of a holy man kneeling at the highest roof of the town, you would think: I know nothing about this.

The only answer to the clarity and simplicity of the architecture, is that it exists in a culture that seems timeless to us.

Architecture works towards ”perfection”, because it works in a timeless space. Its signature is ”Anonymous”, for it is nature itself.

Dimension, Death & Identity: The Work of John Hejduktag:www.architecturenorway.no,2012:/stories/other-stories/malmquist-on-hejduk-2009/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Compared with a preestablished truth of measure, John Hejduk’s work is forbidden fruit. We find stories, materials and geometrical themes appearing side by side. His project “The Architect’s Wheel” is an example of his interest in these different aspects.1 If we look at Hejduk’s drawing of the wheel, we find beneath it a text.

We see four columns with words. The lines of the columns are numbered from one to eight. In the first column we read: plan, section, detail, perspective, isometric, axonometric and flat projection: various types of drawings used in modern architecture. The words of the second column list elements of buildings, such as foundation, wall and roof. The third column lists materials: concrete, wood, stone, glass, and so on. These three first columns include themes common to most architects, while in the fourth column Hejduk adds a list of some of his favorite authors of modern literature: Gide, Proust, Flaubert, Hawthorne, Hardy, Robbe-Grillet, Blanchot and Mann. If we look at these drawings together with the text, the wheel might be interpreted as disclosing different elements needed for Hejduk as a creative architect. From this point of view, we face a curious assembly. There is some­thing wholesome about it: a coexistence. The systems of literature and geometry; the characters of fiction, the geometrical themes and instruments of the architect, materials and elements of buildings: all this is reconciled within Hejduk’s wheel. This project calls for thought. Engagement in the wheel has no beginning or end. Where do we start?

We may begin with Hawthorne’s story of Zenobia - a recurring character in Hejduk’s work.23 As we wander into it, we are already there. We arrive in the middle of a story.

We see a boat floating on the river. Two men on the boat are taking an object - a dead body - out of the river into the boat. We are watching the story’s scene of horror - the horror of Zenobia’s death. For the two men in the boat the body is a dead thing. A woman desirable intellectually and bodily has, now, for these two men been reduced to just that: a dead thing. The dynamics of Zenobia’s moving character through the story, a story of desire, power, science, spirit, love and wonder, is evaporating. Zenobia’s variations and human dimen­sions, are lost.

During the story, one of the men on the boat has spent a long time trying to understand Zenobia’s character, hoping to grasp her identity and solve her mystery. Until her death, he has always been fascinated and surprised by her changing appearance, which has challenged his desires for a fixed understanding. But the analytic reflections and theoretical world views could not categorize Zenobia. However, when she appears for them as a dead corpse floating in front of the boat, her identity can be established.

We have approached the edge of life and death, identity and objects. For Hejduk, this reduction of human life is a “Big Horror”. To objectify Zenobia as a dead fixed “thing” is tragic and unforgivable. To see a man or a woman does not mean that we already know them. To see Zenobia is different from seeing a material thing. A thing can be categorized and we can leave them as such, as things of a certain kind. And it seems they never look back - or do they? A man, a human being, however, is an individual “self”, and each man is a different one.

See for example Soundings, p. 216-233, and The Collapse of Time and Other Diary Constructions, London: Architectural Association, 1987, p. 33-34.&#160;&#8617;

From John Hejduk, "Sentences and the House and Other Sentences", i Pewter Wings Golden Horns Stone Veils, p. 214-219.&#160;&#8617;

How to Talk About Things You Know Nothing Abouttag:www.architecturenorway.no,2009:/stories/other-stories/kahn-harris-2009/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

Pierre Bayard's book How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read (2008) has received favourable notices from many critics. The title may promise a cynical "how to" guide, but Bayard's essay is in fact a profound meditation on reading, knowledge and memory. It is also a book that generates interesting questions for those concerned with politics and citizenship in a knowledge-saturated world.

The author's position as a professor of literature at Paris VIII University naturally predisposes him to reflect on questions of cultural literacy. How is it possible to be culturally literate when a) one cannot read everything; b) one forgets much of what one reads and c) one's knowledge of any book is always partial? Bayard argues that a person should never be ashamed of the gaps in her or his literary knowledge, for this knowledge can only ever be incomplete. Talk about books is not inferior to reading books, but is in fact what constitutes literacy. Bayard urges his readers to treat books - read and unread - as the jumping-off point for discussion, for individual creativity, for the examined life itself.

How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read confines itself to literary fiction, but his book raises difficult issues for readers of any kind of work. There are so many works of literature in the world today that no one - not even the most learned professor - can hope to read more than a tiny fraction; this is even more the case with regard to the corpus of scholarly knowledge in the natural and human sciences. Why has this mismatch between reach and grasp developed, and what is the most fruitful way of living with - and talking through - it?

From globe to parish

The theme of another book offers an interesting light on these questions. Andrew Robinson, in his The Last Man Who Knew Everything, recounts the career of the polymath Thomas Young (1773-1829). Among his many achievements, Young discovered the wave motion of light, made important contributions to medicine and significant advances in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Whilst polymaths still exist today (the scholar Noel Malcolm and the writer-actor-journalist Stephen Fry are notable examples) the early 19th century was the last time when it was possible for one person to make significant breakthroughs in multiple subject areas. As the universities developed from the 17th century onwards, so fields of specialisation also increased in sophistication. By the end of the 19th century, it had become difficult to become expert in both the natural and human sciences - and equally so to achieve expertise outside one's own narrow field of expertise. The age of the expert had arrived.

The age of the expert is also the age of government, as the state has extended its reach into more aspects of life. Even as understanding the complexity of the social and natural worlds was becoming a task requiring ever narrower expertise, management of this complexity required an ever broader strategic perspective. A division of labour evolved in which experts provided specialist knowledge and elected officials acted on it.

But what happens when experts disagree? And what happens when experts have difficulty explaining complex areas of knowledge? Politics consists in part of choosing which expert to believe and choosing what response to expert knowledge is most appropriate. Take issues as various as global warming, the state of the economy or the Iraq war: in all of these areas experts interpret vast swathes of data in often mutually incompatible ways. Citizens, in whom political sovereignty technically resides, have to make decisions as to whom to trust to best manage this confusion. How is the electorate supposed to decide whose response to expert knowledge is best?

In a world saturated by expertise and conflicting opinions, the ability to judge things we know nothing about is an indispensable one. But the starting-point of this ability should be an admission (to oneself and to others) of the scope and nature of our ignorance. Lack of expertise should not disqualify anyone from participation in important debates, provided that one is honest about the gaps in one's knowledge. Donald Rumsfeld's infamous concept of "known unknowns" is helpful here. We cannot know everything, but we can - if we are humble enough - estimate more or less accurately the dimensions of our ignorance.

"But what happens when experts disagree? And what happens when experts have difficulty explaining complex areas of knowledge?"

The map of knowledge

The tendency of people to make assumptions about things they know nothing about is fed by arrogance as much as (or even more than) mere ignorance. A good example is the scientist and controversialist Richard Dawkins's book The God Delusion, which uses his expertise in evolutionary biology to speculate on the evolutionary value of religion in the past and to attest to its complete lack of value today.

The problem with this approach is that Dawkins is ignorant of bodies of knowledge - such as the sociology of religion and critical theology - that have approached religion in very different ways. This ignorance does not disqualify him from writing a book on religion, but what is inexcusable is his apparent ignorance that these bodies of knowledge even exist. His arrogance leads him into making sweeping statements about religion that are over-reliant on his own narrow field of expertise, bolstered with his own prejudices. But the problem here is not that Dawkins is speaking outside his own specific area of expertise - for doing so is in fact essential if knowledge and debate is not to be confined into hermetically sealed compartments - but in the lack of the humility and the perspicacity (in effect, the judgment) to recognise the necessary limits of his knowledge.

This is more than just an attitudinal failure: it reflects a broader gap in our shared understanding of knowledge itself. Knowledge is a complex and demanding system in which the terra incognita is as important (perhaps even more important) than more familiar territory. If we want to draw on or contribute to that system, a cartographic faculty is required - to develop a "map" that, as it explores the contours, moves towards a greater sense of how knowledge is formed and how arguments are made. Knowledge of methodology, of the mechanics of discourse and rhetoric, is a powerful tool that anyone can bring to areas where one is not an expert. Indeed, the most powerful form of knowledge is transferable knowledge - the very knowledge of how to navigate the map of knowledge.

The map is indispensable, for example, in cases where adjudication between claims to expertise and to rightness are involved. In these contexts, "how" things are said is as important as "what" is said. Several current forms of pseudo-science (such as holocaust-denial) illustrate this. Those who deny the Nazi genocide in the second world war tend to bamboozle readers or listeners with a mass of tiny details. When David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for libel in 2000 over sections of her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing assault on Truth and Memory (1993), several renowned experts had to spend months unraveling the deceptions and half-truths in Irving's work to the extent that allowed Lipstadt to be vindicated (the historian Richard Evans, who testified in the case, wrote a lengthy work exposing his falsifications in forensic detail). But if the trial thus confirmed the value of expertise, it also showed that holocaust-deniers (and those who share similar forms of thought) consistently use certain pseudo-scholarly methods that can be spotted without expert knowledge. In other words, non-scholars can identify bad scholarship - and thus (where partisan and poisonous distortion of the truth is concerned) the bad faith behind it.

A humble radicalism

The example suggests that - paradoxical as it may sound - it is through honesty and humility about what we do not know that we are able to speak with greater authority. If we ignore what we do not know (as Richard Dawkins does) or suppress what we have no desire to know (as David Irving does), arguments that claim to be authoritative collapse under the weight of their partiality. But if we accept the partiality of our perspective we can contribute to knowledge in a more honest way, through constructing arguments that are, in Karl Popper's understanding, "falsifiable". Arguments that acknowledge the possibility of being revised are more powerful, more robust and ultimately more long-lasting than arguments founded on arrogance. Knowledge that presents itself humbly is a firmer foundation for policy-making than think-tank or government reports that claim an unwarranted certainty. Owning up to what we do not know is difficult in our political system, but for better policy-making it is a necessity.

Where overweening and unfounded pretence to wisdom or systematic misuse of sources is concerned, there is a responsibility to engage in public argument on the side of knowledge and indeed reason itself. But in many more routine circumstances, it might be helpful to ask (as of the subject of Pierre Bayard's book) whether it is indeed necessary or beneficial to talk about things we know nothing about.

Here, perhaps the more radical if far less considered approach to knowledge lies in a principled distance from (even refusal to participate in) its production or circulation. The cost - in embarrassment, employment opportunities, social exclusion - would for many be enormous, but that is not the only consideration. Bayard's argument opens up a potentially fruitful conversation about how, in a bewildering world, human beings can balance their inescapable ignorance against the necessity to act. At the same time, there is value in the recognition that areas on the map of knowledge that lie beyond one's understanding should be met by respectful silence - which, in a noisy world, can also be considered a healthily subversive act. It's always good to read. But sometimes, it's good not to talk.

Postscript

I should add that I am aware of the irony that I - a precariously employed sociologist with expertise in contemporary Judaism and in popular music - am speaking outside of my fields of expertise in writing this article. An appreciation of irony, together with a tendency towards self-deprecation, should perhaps be a precondition for contributing to public discussion. In this I have learned from Pierre Bayard, who in his book shamelessly points out those classic works he has not read or has forgotten. My ignorance is certainly no less than his.

The Little Girl and the Elephant. London 2006tag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/stories/other-stories/little-girl-and-elephant-2010/2017-01-11T03:27:53+11:00

In 2006, London was visited by a Giant Little Girl, and a Sultan‘s Elephant, This and several other similar visits around the world are the work of Jean-Luc Courcould and his theatre company Royal de Luxe, and the giants are made by François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice from the Nantes-based art workshop La Machine.

Installation, 5,8 x 9,6 m. NOoSphere Gallery, New York.

On the 7th July 2010, the asylum seekers’ centre in Lier outside the town of Drammen burnt down to the ground. Three buildings, holding areas for declined asylum seekers, caught fire simultaneously. 23 people were arrested, suspected of causing the fires. One of them was later convicted. The artwork Coal is made with coal dust and charred bits of wood from the burned buildings. The patterns in the coal dust layer are imprints left by personal belongings collected from the site of the fire. The dust was sieved over the metal objects, which were then removed.

On 22nd July 2011 a terrorist bomb exploded in a truck parked outside Høyblokka, the main government building in Oslo, which house the offices of the prime minister. Eight people were killed by the blast, and the terrorist, a lone gunman, went on to massacre 69 adults and children at a Labour party summer camp at Utøya, north of the city. It was the deadliest attack on Norwegian soil since the Second World War, and traumatised the entire nation.

With the events of 22 July Høyblokka became a national symbol. The ensuing dispute about the future of the damaged, but basically sound structure has since polarized in two directions: preservation or demolition. In December 2011, Arkitektur N, the Norwegian review of Architecture, took a stance against this polarization: “It is our social ideals we need to work with, not just in some architectural form, but in how we move forward, how we treat the Government Building”, said Einar Bjarki Malmquist. “This excludes neither demolition nor restoration of all or part of the building. But it excludes a decision taken on purely practical or economic grounds.”

Arkitektur N and 0047 believe that it is high time to channel and enrich further debate. We invited architects, artists and the general public to sketch their respective visions for the government district. The result was exhibited at 0047, and a selection is presented here.

Shelter for one rock, one tree, two people and four birds.

This is not architecture. It is an art project, because I am an artist and not an architect. As an artist I have aquired some time, but to a lesser degree money. So why make something big, when some-thing small will do? And why use new materials when used ones are available everywhere? Why drill when the rain provides water? I use the things the building industry discards. Steel scaffolding tubes. Used 18mm shuttering boards. The structure is a rational result of the dimensions of the materials. It is flexible: easy to extend or dismantle and erect somewhere else. So far the rock seems ok. The tree thrives. My girlfriend is pleased. And the birds? Only just invited.

This bench, made from 4,2 tonnes of slate tile circling a 159-year-old Turkish hazel tree, was built by two ­architecture students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design for the 200th anniversary of the Botanical Gardens.

The structure is self-supporting, uses no mortar or fastenings and adapts to the uneven ground by virtue of its weight. Any further shifts in the seating level can be accommodated by a couple of knocks with a sledgehammer.

Anne-Karin Furunes is an artist with a background in architecture. She is professor at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art.

Photography by Valerie Bennett.

The art project Digital Balke - Divine NorthAn electronic exhibition of the works of Peder Balke
•
In the summer of 2014, Northern Norway Art Museum presented an exhibition of the works of Peder Balke (1804-1887), one of Norway’s most prominent 19th Century Romantic landscape artists. The exhibition was a collaboration with London’s National Gallery, where it is on display until April 2015.

As Northern Norway Art ­Museum is also responsible for the communication and distribution of art in the three northernmost counties of Norway, but is not always – as in this case – able to arrange for original works to travel, curator Lise Dahl devised an electronic display of Balke. Digital Balke/Divine North is a triple video projection, which takes the viewer on a journey through a selection of Balke’s paintings, accompanied by an electronic sound work by composer Gaute Barlindhaug.

What is the most important task for architecture today? What is the potential for architecture in the future? With these two questions, the Oslo-based gallery ROM for Art and Architecture hoped to engage a selection of architecture practices in the construction of a picture of contemporary practice in Norway. However, the wide range of reactions to these two questions seems to suggest that individual observations, rather than the possibility of identifying tendencies, are the real points of interest.

Vardø Restored

Vardø is unique within the Finnmark region, being the only town in this Arctic county with a coherent set of pre-war buildings; almost all other buildings in Finnmark were ruined by the Germans’ scorched earth policy.

In the years following the war, Vardø lacked any clear city planning strategies, and the historical buildings were poorly maintained. After decades of dilapidation, many of the inhabitants, as well as the local authorities, seemed to think it better to tear the structures down.

But then something changed.

The driving forces behind the Vardø Restored project are local people who wish to alter the future of their town and their region. As the buildings are being restored, new businesses are emerging and old businesses are being brought back to life. And through this work, local pride and optimism towards the future is being restored as well.

Komafest

During the summer of 2012, a multi-national team of twelve street artists descended on Vardø and spread out across its streets, turning the decaying façades and abandoned factories into substrates for their work. The result was a colourful spectacle that turned the town into a destination for street art aficionados the world over.

The stunt was an art project, Komafest, intended to wake the houses of Vardø from their coma.

Komafest 2016 will take place in the empty shops of Vardø’s main street.

The house is conceived as two landscapes: one in concrete, anchored to the sloping site, and one in steel, folded to form the main living spaces. These two material systems meet in a rupture, a ”cleft” penetrating both, which leads light from the south-facing entrance down to the north-facing living space.

The plan is simple – the spatial complexity appears in the section. Rather than contained spaces, V-House offers a continuous surface for social action. The variety of spatial relationships combines with the natural terrain and takes in the Norwegian landscape and the fjord from all sides.

Grønneviksøren is part of the Møllendal transformation area, a site within a 20 minute walking distance of the centre of Bergen. Good visual connections between the new housing and the outer city centre has been an important priority in tying this new development zone to the north-west part of the inner city, and 3RW have also tried to keep inner areas of the housing project open to the public as much as possible.
The project comprises 727 housing units, divided into 16 buildings of varying heights, organised around two green courtyards, designed for a wide range of uses. Grønneviksøren is also one of Europe’s largest modular construction projects, a low-cost venture built with 704 factory-made units.

Landscape
The open solution makes the courtyards the most important social focus. The ground floor units also all have a private terrace facing the common space. A main footway connects the two grassed courtyards, which are also planted with shrubs and perennials. The terrain of the biggest of the yards is shaped to screen the private spaces. In addition to the playground, a slide allows fast descent from the first floor access gallery.

The setting for the Dalaker/Galta farmhouse has a number of distinctive qualities – large trees, stone walls, a grassy slope, rocks reminiscent of Japanese gardens and a view of the sea. The new farmhouse has been placed approximately 150 metres from the existing farm buildings so as not to disturb the original cluster of old buildings.

The starting point is the old pigsty, which provides room for rough functions such as the store room and the entrance to the laundry. The new dwelling volume has been placed above ground. The floor area is small, only 118 sq.m., and the house has been built with a very limited budget. The plan is simple: a cross in the middle of the rectangle contains storage space, bathroom and entrance. The middle of the cross is shifted in order to give the kitchen and living room greater depth than the four bedrooms. Despite of the modest floor area, the plan allows several circulation patterns. The body of the house resembles a tunnel, open at both ends, so that the house appears symmetrical while the setting contrasts with this symmetry, intimate at one side and wide open at the other. The ceiling height has been raised in both the kitchen and the living room.

The house is mainly prefabricated. Timber slab technology has been used in floors, walls and ceilings. Prefabricated elements in whitewood have been left untreated. The cores have been built in a conventional manner and painted black.

This summer house is located on a forested cliff, deep into one of the more spectacular fjords in Western Norway. The project is an attempt to enhance and develop some basic qualities of the site, without destroying anything. The bedrooms are all on an upper level, built as separate small units between the trees, connected by bridges.

The walls of the rooms consist of two sets of parallel beams, with horizontal window bands in between. The first floor has glass walls to the east, south and west. To the north, the existing rock face is incorporated into the room. Thin timber columns completes the structure. The columns are hinged at their meeting with the ground, allowing for adjustments according to the specifics of the topography at each point.

In the autumn of 2011, the student organisation at the Civil and Environmental Engineering department of NTNU invited the architecture students to a design competition for a new student cabin. A year and a half later, after 10 000 hours of communal labour involving 150 students, the cabin was finished.
Shared cabins provide an antidote to the increasingly luxurious holiday homes that are being built for private clients. They are in frequent use by a lot of people, who can participate at a modest cost. This cabin is not accessible by private car, and has no water or electricity, but sleeps 30 people and is shared by about 1000 students.
As in all buildings for collective living, the relationships between private and public zones have to be clearly defined. The plan is a simple linear structure, where the smaller rooms stay connected to the big shared living room. The sloping section allows for bedspaces on a mezzanine.

The project is located in Krokskogen forest, where the client wanted to replace an older cabin with a new structure of the same size in the same location. The new cabin forms a number of sheltered corners. The interior is one continuous open space, centred on the fireplace, with a floor that follows the slopes of the terrain to make steps, seats and benches. Other furnishings are built into and follow the geometry of the walls.

The cabin is built from prefabricated laminated plywood elements. The floor is birch woodblock. The external cladding is 20 mm sheets of black basalt, with dimensions in keeping with the surrounding cabins. It has no mains electricity or running water, but solar cells are integrated in the roof.

This multifunctional building is a combined toolshed and sleep-under-the-stars-facility at the clients’ outdoor summer house patio. The main forms are modern and abstract, without a cornice, while the exterior surface has wood panels coated in natural pitch tar.

The back walls of the smaller sheds are made of glass, maintaining the ocean view. The upper roof of the main building can be slid out, uncovering a skylight inside. The glass roof leads the water away from the patio, while the wooden roof protects agains western winds and snow.

Villa Tussefaret is a 60 sq.m. compact single-family two-storey house. It can be divided vertically into one main unit and one rental unit. Combined, these two units provide four bedrooms, two bathrooms and two living rooms. The idea was to create a concrete “shell”, a one-room house that could later be divided into two floors, which had to have room for two children and a rental unit. Through the design process the house became slightly more conventional, but the idea of the “big shell” is maintained. The house is made from prefabricated concrete elements. The interiors are oak veneered birch plywood. The windows and doors are made of crude aluminium.

The Rundeskogen apartments are situated at an infrastructural node between three city centres on the west coast of Norway. Single-family houses and small-scale housing projects dominate the region, creating a context that accentuates the height and volume of the project, which is also a result of the requirement to keep a distance to a recently discovered Viking grave on the neighbouring hillside. The three towers contain 113 units, ranging from 60 sq. m. to 140 sq. m., with the highest tower reaching 16 stories. The star-shaped core structure is in concrete, with secondary parts in timber. To minimize the footprint of the three towers and retain the neighbours’ view of the fjord, the first floors have been lifted off the ground, cantilevering from the core, creating covered outdoor spaces at ground level.

Each apartment has an integrated winter garden, with fully insulated glass façades allowing flexible, year-round use. Other environmental features include solar collectors on the roof, heat recovery from grey water and ground source heat pumps. Every apartment buyer received a complementary bike and their own fruit tree in the garden.

Following an international seminar about the future of eco-tourism in the Western Ghats region in India, the hut was a prototype developed in a design/build workshop with students from NTNU. The concept is to be as environmentally friendly as possible, and the hut is based on local building traditions. One, two or more huts can be connected to form clusters and courtyards. Unfortunately, the complete project for an eco-resort was never realized.

By a small flap of parkland in the eastern centre of Oslo, Element Arkitekter have designed a 21-unit housing block for Infill, a commercial developer with above average ambitions.

D36 is a contribution to the discussions about quality of life in the dense city. With French windows and a ceiling height of 2,7 metres, the views of the surroundings are part of the plan. The project was realised through a design-and-build contract, a model that worked because the architect remained on the client side throughout, and because of a conscientious contractor who actually read (and priced) the specification. The façade was developed as a research project by the architect and the specialist contractors. The project has a sound commercial basis.

The building is intended as an “evergreen tree” in the city. In addition to the water retaining function of the green roof, the most surprising element has been that the communal areas of the roof garden are actually used more than the private plots.

The Fogo Island Inn is owned by the Shorefast Foundation, a Canadian charitable organization established by Zita Cobb and her brothers with the aim of fostering cultural and economic resilience for this traditional fishing community.

The Fogo Island Inn is a public building located between the communities of Joe Batt’s Arm and Barr’d Islands. The X-shaped plan includes 29 guest rooms. The two storey west-east volume contains public spaces, while the crossing four-storey volume contains all the guest rooms. The public areas on the first floor include an art gallery curated by Fogo Island Arts, a dining room, bar and lounge, and a library specializing in the local region. All guest rooms face the ocean with the bed placed directly in front of the view of the Little Fogo Islands and the North Atlantic beyond.

The summer house by the seaside at Hvaler is set on a site with a very complex microtopography. As the local authorities have very specific planning restrictions for such sites, the building is located in the least useable place, leaving most of the natural ground untouched. The structure is fixed to point foundations drilled into the rock, with no blasting or excavation. The 10 x 10 metre gridded plan is organised to house two different families simultaneously with a certain degree of independence, each with an outdoor terrace. The section is stepped around the rock formation, giving different internal ceiling heights and a variety of storage possibilities.

This project is based on a vague brief from an urban academic client returning to take over the family farm. The floating room is a place for physical and mental rejuvenation, based on the ritual of grooming a horse before and after riding.

The structure is located in a field, with a water tank and manger for the horse and access across a narrow walkway and up a ladder to the room with a view out to the Mediterranean. The translucent white net walls offer differing degrees of privacy dependent on the use.

Shingle house at Vådan, Trondheimtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2015:/projects/dwelling/dikehaugen-2015/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

Dikehaugen 12 is a small family home sited between tall spruce trees at the outskirts of Trondheim. There are three pitched roof volumes: sauna, main house and outhouse, all clad with pine shingles. The project is meant as a statement in today’s construction debate: how to build with a focus on quality, architecture, materiality, structure and sustainability. It is constructed with a limited area, a flexible plan and permeable construction, with an insulated, heated volume nestled within a larger, uninsulated structure. It challenges the building regulations, but not the planning framework. The architect has been client, designer, contractor and, at times, the builder.

The wooded site is surrounded by a dramatic mountain landscape in all directions. The basis for the design was a decrepit family cabin from 1942, which had modern corner windows and weatherboarding, features that have been reflected in the new building. A continuous window band gives a varied view of the mountains all the way around.

The new cabin sleeps nine, but the modest budget set the area limit at 50 sq.m. Most of the bed spaces are on the 14 sq.m. upper level, set within the roof space, with a double bed at ground floor level.

The timber structure is exposed internally, and the glass is mounted directly onto the structure. The detailing tries to achieve minimal transitions between inside and out.

The site is on a north-facing slope with poor sun conditions, but great views. During the darkest winter months, the site is entirely in the shade. The starting point was an existing foundation and a very limited budget, allowing only a very compact and cost effective house for a mother and one child, which could be realised with a high degree of self-build. Doors and other elements from the existing demolished cabin on the site have been re-used.

The idea is simple: The section stretches up to catch the sunlight and reflect them down into the living area. The bathroom/bedroom core is built with an angled wall that further spreads the light. Horizontal windows give a wide view of the agricultural landscape.

This cabin at the north end of Lake Femunden is both a refurbishment- and a reuse project. Two existing log cabins that stood on the site, both about 15 sq.m., have been relocated and connected with a new log structure of similar proportions.

The plan is organised in two crossing axes, with the old structures to the north and east. A new roof creates a covered outdoor area. The log volumes are placed on cantilevered timber slabs on point foundations, causing minimal disturbance to the existing vegetation.

Translucent sheets in the roof ensure good daylight despite the deep eaves, which create sheltered spaces on all sides. New aluminium windows provide a precise contrast to the course log constructions.

The outbuilding in the yard of Vålerenggata 25 in Oslo was originally built as a stable in 1888, but demolished and rebuilt during the war. The existing structure was therefore of limited antiquarian value, and has been replaced entirely by a new building, intended as a multifunctional extension to a family home.

A concrete retaining wall wraps around a double height space with a mezzanine and large doors towards the garden yard. The façade is in carbonised cedar. Interior built-in furnishings are in birch plywood.

Rebuilding an old house at Boggestrandatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2016:/projects/dwelling/boggestranda-2015/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

The existing building have been altered many times and consisted of a combination of post-and-beam and log construction above an earth floor cellar, with ten tiny rooms. The client wanted a simple and functional summer house, open to the view.

A new glass façade opens one wall of the kitchen, and allows the log structure behind the glass to act as a heat store. Only the bedroom is retained, the rest of the house opened up to form one large space. The walls have been wind-proofed and the existing metal sheet roof has a new layer of timber boarding. A new ­entrance lobby on the western side allows for storage of clothes and equipment.

Log construction is alive an well in Norway, as far as demand, craftsmanship and materials are concerned, but few architects have been interested in developing the traditions in this field, reducing it to a predictable log house-kitsch.

In this project, however, Jarmund Vigsnæs and their client were interested in exploring the opportunities of this building technology. The project comprises a long main house alternating traditional heavy log walls with modern glazed volumes, and an annex. Log houses are exempt from current U-value requirements, and so the walls have no additional insulation. Parts of the garage and outbuilding are made with wood chunk walls, a traditional technique suitable for the dry local climate, where waste log ends are set directly into mortar.

Eik Nursing Home is located in a rural forested area outside the town of Tønsberg. The existing facility comprised a number of pavilions in red brick, a theme reflected in the new extension that was the result of an architectural competition.

The main aim has been to provide homely residential surroundings for patients suffering from dementia, avoiding the institutional character of many nursing facilities. People with dementia need simple and identifiable surroundings, with clear orientation. The pavilion organisation separates the residential units with small planted courtyards. The new residential buildings, each with eight rooms, are entered from a new central, roof lit hub containing administration, treatment centre, day facilities and a central foyer.

Clarion Hotel offers a new interpretation of an established hotel typology, where the central glazed atrium is transformed into a dynamic experience by dissolving the hotel room wings into four separate volumes, optimising the view from the rooms and opening the central space to the fjord and the dockside as well as to the surrounding city on all sides.

The organisation of the discreet volumes reflects the urban
structure of Trondheim, which combines larger structural lines with smaller, intimate alleys. The large central space, topped with a golden “star” structure, is offered to the city as a new urban space, further extended by the suites of meeting rooms and the congress centre, café- and restaurant spaces and the sky bar at the top.

The windows of the hotel rooms are framed by a pattern of dots printed on the glazed facade. The patterns add insulation (the building has achieved energy grade A) as well as sun screening. The facade of the congress building consists of laser-cut patterned aluminium sheets, and the architects have designed the carpet pattern, the acoustic wall in the conference room, and twelve unique chandeliers.

The hotel rooms and restaurants have been fitted out by interior architect Anders Bjørkén. Outdoor areas are designed by Plan Arkitekter AS.

The villa was designed for a young couple with two small children, who wanted wood and glass to be the main materials of their new house. The site is in the middle of a housing development on the outskirts of Trondheim, and was less expensive than many of the neighbouring properties since it lacks a direct view of the Trondheim Fjord. Three sides of the site border on neighbouring houses, while the fourth side faces a pretty little copse with brushwood and large trees.

The house is divided horizontally into three parts of very different character: the ground floor, private floor and roof terrace. The ground floor is open and accessible, consisting of a single large, open room, partly set into the ground. This room contains the main entrance, the entrance from the garden, the kitchen, living room, dining room and a small WC. The family can easily regulate the inward and outward views with curtains and a flexible lighting system, but they prefer as a rule to keep the façade open. The compact second floor with its relatively low ceilings has a closed and private character. It contains bedrooms, rooms for work and recreation and bathrooms. Windows are evenly distributed as openings in the façade.

Thorough studies of the topography showed that a roof terrace would allow this client to enjoy a splendid view of the landscape from all sides, not least towards the Trondheim Fjord. In this way, a relatively inexpensive site was turned into a first class location.

The railing around the roof terrace contains storage space, a refrigerator, a stereo system, a grill, water supply and power points.

The top half of the house is constructed as a stiff “box” of solid wooden elements. It stands on six slender steel pillars, triangulated so as to take wind stresses. The house has balanced ventilation with air-to-air heat recovery, a geothermal heat pump for heating rooms and water and a wood stove.

Bjørnveien 119 is situated in an area of large one-family and multifamily houses, close to a sports ground and a petrol station.

The project has been conceived as a compact complex with the scale of a small-house development. It consists of four two-storey patio houses, two of 154 sq.m. and two of 130 sq.m., one west-facing house of 161 sq.m. with veranda, and three three-storey, east-facing houses of 136 sq.m. with balconies. Between the two lines of buildings lies a communal courtyard, with parking beneath. The complex is a synthesis of qualities borrowed from the detached house, the row house, and the apartment. The rooms within each unit are versatile and can be adapted to changing needs. All units have three outside spaces: a front garden leading to the main entrance, a back lawn, and a veranda, balcony or patio, depending on the type of house. In several units a two-storey well with glass on three sides extends upwards from the lowest level, allowing the inhabitants to appreciate the various seasons, with their sun, rain, snow, from indoors. One of the main goals was to ensure that light enters the houses from all angles.

The houses are built in in-situ concrete, insulated and faced with narrow black-painted wooden boards, horizontal on the long facades and upright on the short facades. They rely on “green” energy, and 100-sq.m. of solar collector panels are mounted on the south-facing facade. All floors have a water-borne underfloor heating system, supplemented by a gas heater.

The design of a holiday cabin is pared down to the bare necessities of living. Life moves in a circle from one simple task to another, and the programme is a basic one: cooking, eating, sleeping, washing, being together. The design is correspondingly basic – the architectonic result follows this limited programme and is tailored to the direction, climate and topography of the landscape.

The site lies in the skerries on the outermost point of Papperøy Island in the municipality of Hvaler, one of Norway’s most popular summer holiday locations. It consists of a plateau in an archipelago landscape that varies from deep rocky clefts to flat areas with low vegetation. The plateau is situated 25 metres above sea level, exposed to the wind and with a panoramic view of the sea and the horizon.

The cabin is a slim building with small rooms – the inside is always close to the outside. It is organised around a courtyard, making the outside inside. This produces a sequence of spaces, one behind the other: from the inside we look onto the outside, which looks into a further inside space, which looks onto yet another outside space.

The building stands on piles directly on the rock and consists of a wooden structure with cross-bracing steel elements. It is clad with horizontal oak boards of heartwood fixed with acid-proof screws, and all the exterior terraces are made of larch wood. The interior surfaces are clad with untreated birch: plywood for the ceilings and walls and solid wood for the floors. Energy saving glass has been used. Areas of glazing that are not meant to be opened are merely mounted with sealant.

The farm, which dates back to the 18th century, is now owned by the Norwegian sculptor Knut Wold, who bought it in the mid-1980s. Situated near the town of Hamar, it lies in an open landscape under a wide sky, and looks onto Lake Mjøsa and the Skreiafjellene mountains.

Wold’s aim was to restore the buildings by preserving the distinctive features while at the same time being able to use them in new ways. The first step was to build a studio, an office, a shower and a toilet in the barn. Roof lights were installed and various small alterations were made. Two arched doorways from the days when the barn was used for threshing were removed and replaced by windows. In 1999, the architect Are Vesterlid was engaged in the project, and the south-west corner of the barn was renovated as living quarters: a living room with a kitchen measuring about 3.6 m x 9 m, and an open mezzanine under the 4.3-metre ceiling. The farmyard entrance went through the future gallery space, with a side entrance from a covered outdoor workshop. The existing bathroom was used for the time being. In 2001 the brew house was also renovated as living quarters. In 2003 the loft in the main building was renovated as a studio–living quarters with an outside staircase leading directly up from the farmyard. In 2005 this project was begun: the renovation of the western part of the barn as an art gallery and an addition to the existing living quarters.

”This is not the first time the Sørum farm buildings have been altered,” explains the architect. ”You can see that the buildings have been shaped by the day-to-day lives of succeeding generations, by the different uses to which they were put, by being developed, rebuilt and added to, by repair and renovation. The main building, which is a fairly simple 18th-century farmhouse, was extended several times, and then during the 1920s a completely foreign architectural style was introduced in the shape of a taller building with a cruciform plan, built at an angle to the old house. Although the old and the new buildings had a common roof and the same type of cladding, they no longer belonged to any particular architectural style. If that was the point… Perhaps the owner faced the same dilemma as we do today: pull down and rebuild or preserve and add on, and in the latter case: adapt the existing building or make room for contemporary design.”

The building was originally planned for first-time buyers and younger home buyers. However, the design of the apartments proved to be an answer to challenges involved in facilitating more flexible solutions in a longer perspective than is normal in relation to the size of the apartments. The room solutions and design details are simple, so the residents can alter and upgrade the dwelling themselves.

The planning began with the outdoor areas. The roof terrace, the broad access galleries, the play areas and the passage through the block are designed with regard for the way the building relates to the urban fabric around it and to the public spaces. A common laundry and a common room for the residents have been incorporated into the ground floor, with a door out to a small play area to the north. The common room will be available to residents for meetings and other social activities.

All of the apartments have an open mezzanine over the living room. Most of them also have a mezzanine over the bedroom. The ceiling height of the apartments is up to 4.5 metres, and the open mezzanines provide additional space. Some bedrooms have an en-suite bathroom and minikitchen, which makes them suitable for letting out. All of the apartments have a south-west oriented balcony or terrace. The façade facing the street is designed with open approaches, cantilevered open lofts and steps leading directly from the pavement to the roof terrace. Galleries vary in width, and it is possible for the residents to furnish common meeting places on the galleries, facing the street. The façades to the north and west are designed to be in keeping with the neighbouring buildings, and have a more conventional expression, with white-painted panelling and vertical windows.

With approximately 120 000 visitors each year, the rock formation Preikestolen is one of Norway’s most popular tourist destinations. Stavanger Trekking Association had long toyed with the idea of a new building to serve the increasing numbers of tourists. There was already a lodge on the site, built in 1949, but it had become too small. Moreover, many tourists want something better than bunk beds and a shared bathroom in the corridor. The Trekking Association wanted to provide for the new needs with a new facility, but still wished to retain some of the unpretentiousness that is typical of Norwegian mountain lodges. In 2004, they announced a local architecture competition, which was won by Helen &amp; Hard.

The design of the building volume reflects the sweep of the landscape and the formations of the terrain. The building has been placed around a crag. Heights and roof gradients have been adapted and tuned to match the sheer mountainsides to the north-east and the more gentle ridges to the west. The main structure consists of 15 double, prefabricated solid timber ribs placed 2.8 metres apart and cut through to form the large common rooms on the first floor. The ribs form the partitions between the guest rooms, and provide intimate seating booths along the façade of the restaurant.

In the bedroom area, floor decks have been hung between the wall ribs. The bathrooms have been constructed with three glass walls and one wooden wall. All walls carrying service installations are alike. All tradesmen were able to work with open installations on the solid timber wall, and the installations were subsequently clad with glass. The whole structure is detailed so that the thick wood walls are diffusive. The hygroscopic properties of the solid timber slabs avoids the need for vapour barriers, and windproofing and waterproofing are solved by means of waxed fibreboards. The saddle roofs have a double underlay with air circulation and ventilation openings at the top and along all ridges. In the flattest areas of the roof, an additional layer of metal sheeting has been inserted between the fibre board and ceiling boards. The building has been clad on the outside with heartwood pine and treated with iron vitriol. All materials are toxin- and emission free. Heating is water-borne via circuits under the slate floor, fed from a heat pump in the Refsvatnet lake.

Local building- and craft traditions formed the starting point for the design and selection of interior elements. Wood basketwork is used on cupboard fronts and partition walls in the restaurant. Straw wallpaper on the ceiling is part of a sound absorbent layer. Chairs and benches have been made by a former ski manufacturer, while furniture covers have been specially made by a local weaver.

Preikestolen Mountain Lodge is a Norwegian Wood project. Norwegian Wood was an important part of Stavanger European Culture Capital 2008, organised by NAL | Ecobox and Stavanger Municipality. The projects gave particularly high priority to ecology and sustainability, and were required to meet stringent criteria with regard to innovative use of wood, environmentally friendly use of materials, low energy consumption and universal design.

The coastal cabin has been placed on Vardehaugen, an outcrop of rock by the mouth of the fjord on the Fosen peninsula in Trøndelag.

The project is a result of the client’s wish for a cabin to suit the needs of the family, the distinctive site and the shifting climate of the area. The site is located 35 metres above sea level in a small depression with panoramic vistas in three directions. The building is inspired by the traditional Norwegian cluster yard, where flexible sheltered outdoor spaces and a clear social organisation are the main principles.

The body of the building lies snugly along a low mountain ridge, hugging the polished rock. The kitchen is the backbone of the building, tying the different rooms together. Here one has an overview of the cabin and the atrium, and access to the panoramic view out to sea. The bedrooms and the bathroom are located at the back of the house and the living room furthest out, like an observatory. The plan is open, but has nooks and crannies where one can enjoy a little privacy.

To provide maximum protection for the cabin, the black roof is folded down to become a wall on the sides most exposed to the weather. The wall surfaces are angled to prevent the wind from taking hold. By the entrance and the living spaces the rough dark walls are replaced by horizontal white panelling. The cabin is constructed with a simple timber frame, clad with impregnated pine. The cabin is anchored with steel cables that extend from the ground beam via the foundation wall to the bedrock.

House in a forest, Hvassertag:www.architecturenorway.no,2012:/projects/dwelling/hus-hvasser-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

This private courtyard house was designed and built by the architect while he was still a student, for his mother and his brother Hans, who has Down’s syndrome. Most of the original trees on the wooded suburban site were retained. The house and its outbuildings shelter an open courtyard where openings and views inwards and outwards give everyone the opportunity for both freedom and security.

The project is located in the Storelva neighbourhood of Kvaløya, an island area outside Tromsø in the far north of Norway. The site has a panoramic view of the fjord and the mountains. The name Storelva stems from a river that flows near the boundary of the site. The houses are fairly close to the road, but sheltered outdoor recreation areas have been established to the west and north, away from the traffic. These outdoor recreation areas also provide an effective buffer to the rushing sound of the river.

The development consists of a row of seven houses, all with a living area on three floors and a private roof terrace, where there is sun from early morning to late evening in the summer. Six of the houses have three bedrooms, kitchen/family room, living room, bathroom and additional WC. The end house facing the river has only one room on each floor, as well as a bath and WC.

The construction principle is based on an earlier project known as i-BOX, built by Steinsvik Arkitektontor in Tromsø. All of the houses, including cellars, are built of solid timber elements, with roofs insulated with rockwool. The timber structure provides effective soundproofing. Externally the buildings are covered with Norwegian heartwood pine. Carports, storerooms, bicycle sheds, a barbeque shed and a waste recycling unit are also built of solid timber elements. The heating plant, the heart of the building, is located in a stairwell on the roof. The solar collector is integrated into the south façade, where the large glass surfaces also allow a grand view. Importance is also attached to daylighting, and there is movement-controlled lighting in all rooms.

This is a small house for two historians and their children on a vacated farm that the couple inherited. The house is attractively situated at Toten in the county of Oppland with a view of Mjøsa, Norway’s largest lake.

There were previously two buildings in the farmyard, a house and a barn. The house has been retained, but is uninsulated, and is now used only for occasional guests and for storage. The barn had to be demolished as there was rot in the load-bearing structure. However, the century-old panelling was still in good condition, and has been used as panelling and terraces for the new house. Some of the old planks had been cut to varying widths, and narrowed towards one end. These have been used to adjust the new horizontal panelling in relation to the gradient of the site and the angle of the roof.

The barn’s spatial complexity, exposed structure and simple use of materials are clearly reflected in the new house. From the main entrance, the organisation of the house relates both to the view of the lake and to the terrace on the west side of the house. A series of stepped rooms provides a visual connection throughout the length of the house. The children’s rooms are at the upper level and the parents’ room is below. The main section opens towards the south to let in the low winter sun. The glass-clad conservatory functions as a heat store in winter and as a heat buffer in summer. The main structure is in timber with aluminium-clad windows. The basement floor is exposed concrete. The house is heated by water-borne underfloor heating and a wood stove.

Gudbrandsjuvet is a series of wild water­falls and pools – created by the river Valldøla, also running through a narrow gorge. According to folktales, this is where Gudbrand jumped across the river, carrying his bride, whom he had stolen from someone else. The area, situated in the north-western area of Norway, is an attraction, reaching 250 000 visitors every summer. Jensen &amp; Skodvins work makes the gorge accessible and safe, by encircling a small hillock in a steel and concrete structure with a slender steel railing.

The beach bar was erected to serve the 28 holiday houses at Hosnasand, but has become a popular spot for the wider community. In addition to the bar and the 28 houses, the project has grown to include a beach hotel dug into the sand bank. Each of the little suites in the hotel has different colours, materials and furnishings, designed by the Master students at the School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg.

The urban block surrounding this project is a combination of buildings from different periods and with different purposes, an example of 19th and 20th-century mixed industrial and residential fabric. The new building responds to this by offering 12 flats with a variety of plan types from 35 to 85 sq.m., for people in different phases of life, which also gives an efficient use of the available site.

All flats have a south-facing balcony of minimum 6 sq.m., most are dual aspect and the top flats have private roof terraces. Service cores are in the centre of each flat.

This house is part of a series of rental holiday homes constructed for the organisation Living Architecture. The roofscape relates to the local seaside vernacular, whilst the glazed ground floor, set into the dunes, provides a contrast, protects the house from the wind and offers a full view of the East Anglian coastal landscape. The corners open with sliding doors.

The ground floor is made with concrete, glass and aluminium, while the top is made with laminated timber slabs, stained black.

This housing complex, the result of an open architectural competition in 2002, is located in a test zone for urban sustainability. It consists of two buildings flanking a south-facing rear yard: a five-storey block of communal housing units with offices on the ground floor, and a two-storey block of six studio flats.

The main concerns of the project has been user participation, sustainable architecture, flexible planning and innovative use of timber. The aim of the house plans is to reduce the overall area whilst retaining quality of living. In the communal flats, half the area is shared, giving inhabitants access to a spacious kitchen, living area and balcony for the price of a studio flat. Room heights vary from 2,8 to 4,5 metres. The average area per person is 22 square metres.

The walls and floor slabs of the two blocks are constructed from compact timber elements, all exposed internally. Load bearing external walls give freedom to move internal partitions as required. External panelling, windows and doors are in untreated heartwood pine.

The inhabitants have been involved in all phases of design and construction and have partly completed the actual building works. This process of involvement and change will continue in the years to come.

The developer's business idea for this project is based on urban repair and small, awkward sites, so-called “space left over after planning”. The site for this project is a narrow strip between two party walls.

The block comprises nine flats, from 18 to 137 sq.m. Two flats have roof gardens. The plans are compact but well lit, from the
front and rear facades and from a central light well. As the site is completely built over, the roof gardens become central to the development strategy in order to provide communal
outdoor space.

The material strategy has been to use a limited number of high quality materials: copper, heat treated pine, exposed concrete
and painted steel, with oak parquet on the interior floors. The main structure is concrete post-and-beam.

Smaller homes have many advantages, not least in environmental terms. Boxhome is a dwelling with a useable area of 19 square metres, with four spaces covering the basic functions of a dwelling: kitchen with dining space, bathroom, living room and bedroom. We have focused on the relationship of light, materials and spatial relationships, as well as on reducing floor area.

The result is a compact dwelling at a quarter of the price of a conventional flat of the same size. Perhaps the production of dwellings, although important, is not so complicated that it has to be controlled entirely by market forces? This structure represents an alternative to current consumerist trends and their global consequences, and at the same time it is a peaceful little home within the intensity of the city.

The Fantoft area is being transformed after the building of the Bergen Light Railway. Since 2006, 3RW Arkitekter have directed the strategic planning efforts to ensure the quality of local developments along the new line.

The Fantoft student housing area was developed in the 1960’s, and in need of upgrading. The new housing blocks, two slim, curved volumes framing the railway line stop, provide a focus for further development. They provide living accommodation for single students as well as families, as well as communal living. Galleries provide both access and communal social areas. The compact volumes have low energy consumption, and a rational construction strategy gave low building costs.

Boathouse at Auretag:www.architecturenorway.no,2011:/projects/dwelling/naust-2011/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

Traditional Norwegian boathouses have been used to store boats and fishing gear, but now many of them are being converted for recreational summer use. At this site, the existing boathouse was in bad shape and had to be torn down, but its simple shape, sensible placement and honest use of materials inspired the new building.

A lot of the materials were reused, either as shuttering for the concrete walls and footings or as internal panelling. Windows from the client’s farmhouse were also reused. The exterior cladding is Norwegian pine impregnated with a by-product from the sugar cane industry, which will give grey patina. The shutters on the long side swing open with the help of simple steel fittings.

A flexible process, which allowed on-site design reactions, has been essential to the result.

This is a new family home built on an existing farm outside the centre of Trondheim. The site is on the edge of a plateau of clay, facing the farmyard and two existing ash trees. The main form of the new house reflects the typology of the existing farm, but the new house extends down to include a rental unit on the lower ground floor.

Ground and first floor are divided by a thermal concrete block wall, covered in clay render using clay from the site. The wall has an actively heated zone with heat pump heating to one side, but only passive heating of the side facing the yard. Natural convection driven ventilation distributes the active heat to other zones.

This housing development is built on a simple idea: Affordable quality homes for first-time buyers, a large group of potential customers who are currently having great difficulty breaking into the market. The approved plan allowed a few significant exceptions from normal practice: limited indoor space is balanced by generous communal outdoor areas, and a private terrace adjoining the communal space extends each living room.

The first four building phases consist of 60, 80 and 100 sq.m. row houses. As it became clear that the smaller units sold first, the last building phases has more smaller units – 10 quadruplets facing a communal garden. All ground floor units have universal access. All 115 units were sold well before completion, and a further 150 units are in planning.

Weekend house at Sildegarnsholmen, Herøytag:www.architecturenorway.no,2016:/projects/dwelling/sildegarnsholmen-2016/2017-06-28T01:48:55+10:00

The house replaces an old warehouse that was washed out to sea in a storm in 1992. Flood level tides can reduce the islet to half size, so expecting future storms, water can penetrate the ground floor without causing damage.

The main structure consists of seven steel frames, protected by a timber façade with a number of hinged and sliding panels. The inside spaces on the ground floor are bounded by steel and glass walls. On the level above, four timber volumes have been inserted containing bedrooms and bathrooms.

The building was constructed on land at Ulsteinvik, shipped two nautical miles on a crane barge, and lifted into place on the islet.

Densification of existing suburbs requires high quality architecture to insure that the new developments continue to build on existing characteristics and connections. This single-family house was built for sale, and the client agreed to invest in the planning, the execution and long-term solutions.

The house forms part of the existing street rhythm. The narrow site is part of an existing garden, but incorporates a yard and parking facilities, as well as private outdoor areas on all sides. Both existing and new houses have good sunlight aspects.

The basement is in concrete, with two timber frame storeys on top and timber panelling externally. The compact volume includes a number of passive energy measures.

This single-family house is located on a rural site with a wide view across Lillehammer to Lake Mjøsa. The property comprises three houses around a courtyard. One – the main house – is currently completed. The second is a sound studio, the third will be a guest house, and the whole assembly is planned as a modern farmyard, a place to live and work.

The three-storey main house has a timber structure consisting of a number of uniform 200 x 200mm members, preassembled into frames, with bracing added on-site as required. The structure is exposed internally, particularly present in the large first floor living spaces.

The façade to the south is mainly glass, stepped to avoid flashing details. The north timber wall has only small openings. The external panelling is slow-growth spruce, treated with iron vitriol.

The starting point was typical: a tight suburban site and a limited budget. The ground floor footprint is small, but the first floor cantilevers out to create covered areas below, and a variety of smaller volumes adapt to the site conditions and allowing for a selection of views on all sides.

The main timber structure is exposed in the central space: simple columns and beams that are all dimensioned according to their load, resulting in an assembly of unique elements rather than a repeating system. The house is an organic result of the geometry of the house and its functions.

In connection with structural development of the Norwegian defence organisation, the Norwegian Parliament in 2002 decided to establish a new administration building for the Defence Staff and the Ministry of Defence at the Akershus Fortress. The project consists of a new building and a conversion of parts of the existing fortress, known as the Workshop Building.

Akershus Fortress has many historical layers. Some of these are the result of purposeful planning (e.g. Schirmer and von Hanno’s plan dating from the 1800s), while others can be characterised as arbitrary, the consequences of refurbishments or unfinished plans.
In this respect, the Akershus Fortress site embodies a continual process of creation and transformation that we have sought to conserve and clarify.

The new programme demanded a transformation of the area. The overall aim of this transformation was to develop a modern office building with good internal communication between the various departments. The facility is intended to represent an open and accessible institution, while also satisfying specific requirements regarding security, both in daily operations and in emergency situations. Regard for both antiquarian and organisational considerations required an exceptional degree of flexibility in the design. The solutions are based on the main principles of the urban perimeter block concept prepared in close cooperation with the conservation experts of the Directorate for Cultural Heritage and the Norwegian Defence Estates Agency.

The overall intention of the project has been to create a dialogue with the existing buildings, a dialogue that both refers to and discusses the past. A dark colour has therefore been chosen for the brickwork on the heavier parts of the new building, with reference to the use of brick particularly in the Arsenal and the Workshop Building. In order to continue this development of details, the windows have been placed in deep niches, with frame profiles concealed by the masonry. Sun shielding is integrated in the double glazing.

Space Group has transformed the old protected industrial buildings by the Akerselva River into part of one of the new cultural axes of Oslo, a new cultural powerhouse where art, culture and film production can meet.

The development is in three parts: Signal Media House, Office for Contemporary Art (OCA) and Ny York kindergarten. All three are connected to the public realm through an unprogrammed open space, which gives room for collective and individual activities and rich use and interaction.

The project preserves and reinterprets the historic parts of the architecture, whilst clearly defining both new and old. In the most recent part of the project, the Signal Media House, a new glazed roof structure covers a “Vertigo Space” that connects all the main functions of the building and brings light down to the deepest parts, the basement cinema and film production areas.

The buildings are heated and cooled by a combination of heat wells and air-to-air heat pumps. The spatially open solution allows an efficient system of displacement ventilation, reducing the need for conduit. Internal blinds form part of the extract system and help control heat gain and heat loss beneath the new glazed roof.

The new building houses the Meteorological Institute’s enormous servers for weather data processing, as well as new meeting rooms and a staff canteen. Public- and staff areas are located on the upper level, with the technical functions below. The local terrain has been shaped to allow universal access to both levels, on both sides.
The external cladding of perforated panels varies from closed to open in a pattern of clouds circling the building. A low carbon footprint has directed the choice of main materials: timber cladding and low-carbon concrete.

Statoil regional and international offices, Oslotag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/projects/working/statoil-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

The new office building at the former airport outside Oslo gathers Statoil’s regional and international activities, 2500 employees, under one roof. The building is the result of an open bid in 2008, with detail design and a short 20-month construction period before the opening in the fall of 2012.

The offices are divided into five generic bars, stacked up with large cantilevers to reduce the building footprint and keep the site clear for a public park. Each bar is built as an independent bridge structure, with many of the elements such as steel and concrete decking prefabricated off site. In the middle of the stack is a large communal space, covered with a double-curved glass roof.

The building is organised to allow for future changes in occupation and use, and can be divided up for several tenants. The interior design focuses on social solutions for an innovative working environment with a variety of working- and meeting places, and was developed in close collaboration with the tenant, Statoil, and their advisers, as well as the other consultants.

Maggie’s Centres are not treatment centres, but places where people diagnosed with cancer can meet and get help and counselling. In 2011, Snøhetta were invited to design the new Maggie’s Centre at Forester Hill Hospital in Aberdeen.

The centre is a freestanding pavilion at the end of a big field, which separates it from the rest of the hospital, but provides views and sunlight. The building is conceived as a simple, closed form, a shell, with strategic incisions giving access in three directions. The shell itself is a primitive three-layer structure of sprayed concrete, insulation and render.

In the centre of the internal space is a freestanding orthogonal core of oak, which divides the space into four parts, one part being an external garden space, still within the embrace of the main form.

The new building for the Dental Faculty of the University of Bergen finds itself in a grand space in the hilly landscape, surrounded by historic villas and mature trees.

The main circulation hall of the new building runs along the street, and the overall height of the volume respects the surrounding buildings, with two storeys to the west rising to four storeys to the east. A central atrium provides daylight for the clinical spaces. The services are technically sophisticated, and integrated in the building with distribution at floor level.

The colour scheme reflects the colours of the surrounding villas, with the bright red of the main hall providing an invigorating contrast.

New Headquarters for Gyldendal Publishers, Oslotag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/projects/working/gyldendal-2007/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

Gyldendal is Norway’s largest publisher, but by 2005 its activities had expanded to the point where the publishing house occupied an entire block in the centre of Oslo. Over time the old-fashioned internal structure, with its maze of small rooms, had become impractical and difficult to work in. The architect commissioned to redesign the offices, with a view to keeping and restructuring the existing buildings. Thus the original facades were retained and a new building constructed within the old structure. A large central courtyard was created that contained the “Danish house”, a copy of the original premises of the Danish mother company in Copenhagen. The main entrance is now the original gateway in Sehesteds plass, and the company’s distinctive copper entrance door has been restored and moved from its previous position in Universitetsgaten to the new Sehesteds plass entrance.

The main plan is structured as an urban space, with exposed cylindrical columns, a tall ceiling and a succession of sculptural forms. The concrete wall at the entrance curves around the “theatre”, a sunken amphitheatre with over a hundred seats, encircled by a balcony. The materials used throughout are light concrete, oak and dark textiles. In the ceiling are curved panels of oak veneer. Offices, meeting rooms, seminar rooms and writers’ rooms are situated around the periphery of the luminous central space. This space is the heart of the building, and its generous dimensions are an open invitation to formal and informal meetings for exchanging experience, ideas and information, and to the organisation of cultural events and parties. The roof is formed of 18 pyramid-shaped concrete skylights of different sizes, set at different angles into pale concrete ribs. These spread the natural light entering the building, so that the play of light reflects the different seasons and time of day.

The layout allows for the flexibility needed by a busy publishing house in constant change.

The Norwegian Embassy in Kathmandu, also designed by Kristin Jarmund, was completed in 2008. The new residence forms part of the same complex, located behind and above the embassy on a terraced slope, with a view of the Himalayas.

The two-storey building has a square plan with a central atrium, and houses representational functions on the lower level with the ambassador’s private residence above. A sequence of clearly defined exterior spaces along a central axis tie the residence to the embassy. For security reasons, and the close proximity of neighbouring buildings, most rooms open onto the atrium of face the embassy wing. The house is surrounded by walls that also integrate guardrooms, service functions and staff quarters.

The materials reflect local constructions and combine slate cladding and rendered masonry. The atrium facades have travertine cladding. The main structure, earthquake proof, is in in-situ concrete. Shutters and exterior ceilings are in Nepalese timbers, salwood and sesau.

Interior architects: Linda Evensen Design Ltd.

The interior commission comprised furnishing the representation areas and designing the built-in kitchen and library elements, as well as the wardrobes of the private apartments. The furniture has been chosen to enhance the simplicity of the architecture, using Norwegian products where possible, and giving flexibility for both larger and smaller gatherings. Colours are inspired by Nepalese tradition and crafts, and the carpets were produced locally.

FRIrom – a room for emotiontag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/projects/working/frirom-2013/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

People in emotionally precarious situations are especially sensitive to their physical surroundings. Nurse Mads Bøhler saw the need for a place at the hospital where family and visitors can retreat and be alone with their thoughts.

FRIrom was developed as a Master’s thesis at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. It is a small timber structure, built with digitally produced timber elements, insulated externally with recyclable wood fibre mats and clad with braided aspen strips.

The sky lit interior has a wool-covered mattress and one large cushion, and by leaving your coat and shoes at the door you signal to others that the room is in use.

Cassia Coop Training Centre is the public face of Cassia Coop, a cinnamon business on Sumatra. The owner, Patrick Barthelemy, contacted Tyin with an open brief – he wanted to develop a socially sustainable operation, and set new standards in fair trading and worker welfare. The training centre is a school for local farmers and workers.

The main concept is a light timber structure on a heavy base of locally crafted brick and concrete. This strategy has already allowed the building to survive several earthquakes of over five on the Richter scale. The combination of thermal mass and a lifted roof structure with deep eaves allows the building to be naturally ventilated. The timber is cinnamon wood, a conventionally low-status material. The entire project uses only ten different details.

The project was planned and built in three months, with the help of architects and architecture students from Norway as well as local workers, craftsmen and water buffalo.

The "Tyin touch"?

The first of Tyin’s projects appeared in 2008. By the time the images of their beautiful ”Butterfly Houses” in Thailand had done their tour of the international architectural press, Yashar Hanstad and Andreas Gjertsen had built a few more projects, won more awards, and even found time to finish architecture school.

"We want the choices we make in our projects to be understandable," says Gjertsen. "Our projects are beautiful because we have worked them through very intensively," says Hanstad. The structures are simple, but that doesn’t mean they are based on easy decisions. Nor that they are always successful, even though the Cassia Coop Training Centre seems to fulfil expectations.

Tyin have built in Thailand, Uganda and Indonesia, but they do not know how their experience from around the work will transfer to a Norwegian construction environment. "We just haven’t built enough yet," says Gjertsen. "I think perhaps our most important contribution has been to inspire our local collaborators to see their own neighbourhoods in a different way," says Hanstad. "When it comes to Norway, we’ll just have to see."

The fish market has a long history in Bergen, and is an important tourist attraction. It was, however, in need of upgrading to offer comfort and hygiene all year round for both vendors and visitors. This necessitated a building on the open square.

Our project tries to offer the necessary facilities while reflecting both the urban situation and the long history of the place. The moderate height of the building allows for a view of the historical structures behind, and the transparent facade of the open ground floor allows the market to flow underneath and gives a clear view of the harbour.

The historic warehouse property lines are traced in the paving, and the historic harbourside architecture is reflected in the materials and colours of the new facade.

This navy training centre combines facilities for specialist military training with civilian use, and functions also as a social meeting place for the 5000 military and civilian staff of the Håkonsvern army base. It consists of large elements, like sports halls and –fields and indoor and outdoor swimming pools. The buildings are located on a landfill by the fjord, facing a small wooded hillside.

The foyer, between the multi-use hall and the pools, is the social meeting point. Changing facilities are along a corridor to the rear, with offices on the upper level above. Specialist installations include an artificial ship’s side for boarding practice.

Contemporary crematoria have to be religiously neutral spaces, appropriate to everyone who wants to participate in the process, right up to witnessing the cremation itself. There are also important technical and functional considerations, with emphasis on good working conditions for staff; in addition the building often has a significant position in its context and landscape.

Vestfold crematorium is located on a noisy site by the E18 motorway, but its location next to a small beech forest screens the approach from noise and view.

Almost the entire complex, even the oven rooms, is open to the public, so the path of the coffin through the plan is kept simple. The height of the volumes increases towards the oven room, keeping the entrance façade low and intimate.

The external walls are in loadbearing brickwork, with concrete cantilevers. The floors are light concrete with a local stone aggregate. Exposed heavy materials help regulate and cool the indoor climate. The heat from the smoke purification is recirculated in the underfloor heating.

Landscape

The location of the crematorium makes the seasonal changes of the beech forest part of the atmosphere in all of the main spaces. The technical side of the building and the garden by the main ceremonial space are screened by walls.

The landscaping of the park is inspired by the cultural landscape of the local area. Existing trees are retained and new fruit trees, beeches and oaks planted, along with a clipped willow hedge. Several small gardens use plants like periwinkle, day lilies, geraniums and aquilegia. The outdoor landscape also allows universal access.

Lærernes Hus (Teachers’ House), the new conference centre of the Union of Education Norway, lies in the centre of Oslo, and is organised on four floors: lobby on the first floor, conference hall on the second floor and café and roof terrace on the third floor. The cloakroom, toilets and technical rooms are located in the basement. The rear building of an existing townhouse contains, among other things, a fire escape, storeroom and kitchen. The main focus of the project has been to create a building that is both energy- and environmentally friendly. This has resulted in a low-energy building with energy consumption estimated at only 80 kWh/sq.m. per year, achieved by a combination of the choice of materials and efficient energy solutions: ten energy wells, a heat pump and cast-in water pipes in floor decks and in the main staircase. The additional cost of the energy wells and the heat pump has a payback period of three to five years. In addition to this, LED lighting has been used, which has a long lifetime and low energy consumption. The decoration of the main façade functions as sun screen and further improves the energy efficiency.

The main approach has been to create an interplay between a large conference hall and integrated art in the façade, symbolising the central role of the client organisation in education and training. The building is adapted to the heights and the roof lines of the neighbouring buildings on both sides. The building has light from both sides on all floors, and the café is set back to secure the daylight and openness towards the surrounding courtyards. A gently rising main staircase begins in the lobby and runs parallel to the glass façade. The risers are low and the steps deep to encourage slow movement. There are two coffee bars on the landings, inviting people to use the staircase as a vertical lobby.
The main materials are light in-situ concrete combined with glass façades facing the conference hall, the street and the rear courtyard. The street façade is supported by continuous vertical glass fins. Integrated artwork, developed in close cooperation with the artists, gives the building a unique and personal expression.

Royal Norwegian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepaltag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/projects/working/embassy-kathmandu-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:54+11:00

The new Norwegian Embassy is a freestanding building in the garden of the older villa. The villa, which formerly housed the embassy, is to be demolished to make way for a new ambassador’s residence. The site measures about 4000 sq.m. The design of the building and its landscape are intended to present a modest, yet up-to-date and quality-conscious image of Norway. At the same time the design and detailing should not be entirely alien to Nepalese architecture and the use of materials should reflect local building traditions.
Most of the building is on a single level and has a low profile in the landscape, apart from a small two-storey volume marking the main entrance. This gives the rooms in the upper floor a panoramic view of the Himalayas, which are reflected in a long zigzag-shaped ”Himalayan window”.

Natural stone of high quality has been used throughout, and shelves planted with vegetation are built into the walls. The aim is to present Norwegian culture through an open and transparent working environment, where the various rooms are divided by glass partitions. A long hallway links the offices and common rooms and opens onto a south-facing terrace. External steps, the foundation wall and the outer walls of the basement are faced with slate. The top-floor facades and the slab edges are faced with light-coloured travertine. Nepalese sesau wood has been used for pergolas, ventilation grilles and some elements of the facade. The main structure is a stiff framework of columns and beams, with free-spanning slabs of in-situ concrete, in accordance with the requirements for buildings in earthquake areas. The detailing was developed by local consultants in cooperation with Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter. Local entrepreneurs and local workmen were used. Statsbygg (The Directorate of Public Construction and Property) provided temporary accommodation for the workmen and their families for the duration of the project.

This hydroelectric power generating station is located just below the Pålsbu dam in the Numedal valley. It adds a new generator to the larger power station below, avoiding the need for a completely new dam and plant.

The new structure aims to enhance the qualities of the existing situation. It contains turbine, generator, transformer and staff facilities, and consists of 15 prefabricated insulated concrete elements, covered by a steel beam roof. The shape indicated the rotating flow of the water, and the shadows on the façade chart the course of the sun across the 530-metre stretch of the dam. Stainless steel profiles lead rainwater away from openings, but allow it to run over the large concrete surfaces, that over time will be covered with lichen and algae.

Kronstad Centre is a local psychiatric hospital that includes ambulant teams as well as bed wards. The design aims to provide positive qualities in a challenging urban situation, whilst giving the patients the necessary protection.
The seven-storey building flanks an open public square, which stretches from the local tram stop through the green wall facade into the transparent ground floor of the centre, where there is a café and a shop. The white façade above is more closed and shelters the protective parts of the building, which are organised around three large atria. The most sensitive areas of the centre are located at the top with their own rooftop gardens and outdoor spaces.
The importance of the landscaping increased as the project progressed. There are a total of nine roof gardens, located on different floors, to provide relief in the dense urban setting, away from the heavy traffic. The gardens also provide storm water retention. One of the first ever vertical green walls has been constructed by the main entrance, a challenge in a cold climate. The square in front of the building has a simple design with yellow gravel and concrete paving, a water screen next to the trafficked throughway and two rows of magnolia trees along the street opposite. The central tree is a large beech.

Pepper is a clothing shop, located in one of the oldest shopping streets in Bergen. When the interiors were stripped for refurbishment an original brick wall was uncovered, forming a contrast to the new interiors of the shop. The furniture gives associations to building sites: A counter and several small benches resemble pallets stacked on top of each other, with a carrara marble top. The shelves resemble scaffolding.

Powerhouse Kjørbo in Sandvika outside of Oslo opened in April 2014 and is the first finished project of the Powerhouse collaboration. Two office buildings from the early 1980s have been refurbished, reducing their energy use by 90 percent. The solar panels on the roofs can produce more than 200 000 kWh per year – twice the amount needed to operate the buildings.
Developing a good indoor environment with low energy consumption has been a priority. Ventilation, insulation and energy-efficient lighting systems are just a few of the features that contributed to Powerhouse Kjørbo receiving a BREEAM Outstanding certification for the design phase.

Kongens gate 1 is a two storey building in central Oslo, with a simple, rustic façade. Parts of the building date from the 1600s, and the complex was refurbished Arnstein Arneberg by the building in the 1920s. The choice of materials and colours is intended to create a fluid transition between the old and the new. Original wooden floors have been sanded and painted a warm grey, while the old timber ceiling has been painted ochre. All furniture was chosen with attention to modern standards of comfort and functionality. The garden, which includes a historic well, has also been rebuilt.

The Smestad plant represents a new building type: a public recycling facility where all activity takes place indoors, a preferable operation for users, staff and neighbours.
The site faces the Oslo ring road, backed up against a steep cutting. The suburban houses overlook the sedum roof, which further hides the plant from general view.
The structure itself is an open hall, with precast concrete gables and a hybrid shed-pitched roof. The plant has climatised staff rooms and a capacity for 34 visiting cars and 16 waste sorting containers.
The façade facing the ring road is clad with stretch metal panels mounted on the secondary laminated timber columns, the direction of the material opening the façade towards the east and closing it to the south.

Sparebanken Vest wanted to concentrate their activities in a new building in the centre of Bergen, on a site at the edge between tall post-war blocks and small-scale 18th century houses. Cubus and Brandsberg-Dahl won the limited design competition held in 2008, with three moves that have persisted through the planning process: the building completes the urban fabric and frames a new square; an open façade exposes a lively interior; the atrium is a meeting place for all users.
The atrium gathers communal activities and connects with the public areas on ground and first floors, which can be hired out for external functions. The upper office floors are organised with noisy activities around the atrium, and zones for concentration along the façade. All surfaces are designed for optimal light- and sound conditions. The façade design is inspired by water and reflects the traditional Bergen timber houses.

Landscape

The site is an important part of the cultural axis through the centre of Bergen. The adjacent street has been pedestrianised, and the new square allows for diverse urban activities. The recessed entrance provides a covered outdoor area.

Interiors

IARK has been responsible for all interior planning, collaborating with architects and users from the very start of the project. A long process of user participation made sure information flowed both ways, so the users would know what to expect from the new building. An aesthetics advisory group with representatives from everyone involved made the final decisions on function, design, colours and materials.

“The most important room in the world”tag:www.architecturenorway.no,2016:/projects/working/un-security-council-chamber-2016/2017-08-24T17:56:55+10:00

The interior of the Security Council Chamber in the UN building in New York was a gift from Norway to the UN in 1952. The Chamber was designed by Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg, who had close ties to Trygve Lie, the first UN Secretary General. Arneberg and Lie agreed that art was to play an important part in the room, so in addition to the high quality tapestries and fittings that were shipped from Norway, the room is dominated by a five metre high painting by Per Krogh, showing a Phoenix rising from the ashes of the world.

The restoration of the chamber was completed in 2013, as part of the general plan for reconstruction of the UN headquarters. – Our aim was for the conservation work to be done professionally, says Linda Veiby from the Norwegian Directorate of Cultural Heritage, who were involved from the start, as the restoration work was also financed with Norwegian donations. Else Poulsson’s woven wall coverings have been remade, but all the timber and stone elements that were taken down to remove the asbestos underneath, have been restored and remounted. – The experience values of the room have been retained. This is still a Norwegian room.

This stopping point presents the experi­ence of the Svandalsfossen waterfall, which lies on a National Tourist route between the small industrial city of Sauda and the village of Ropeid, along the north-western side of the Saudafjord. The project allows safe crossing of the road and a wet and wild “next to nature” experience.

On one side, the road is widened to allow for parking, and from there a stairway descends to a platform under the road bridge, close to the waterfall itself. Further steel stairs and paths continue down to the fjord. A side arm of the waterfall is reached across a smaller corten steel bridge, where a path leads right to the top.

Kvassheim lighthouse is located on a stony beach surrounded by fields near the National Tourist Route Jæren, and it is being developed as a centre for exploring the coastal landscape. The original complex comprised five buildings, which have been connected and added to with three new structures. The protected silhouette of the complex has been respected in the development, which has focused on functional refurbishment. The complex contains a hiker’s shelter, café and exhibitions. There are plans for overnight accommodation.

For a drinking water company in northern China, Jensen &amp; Skodvin Arkitekter have designed a canopy over a water source, in a conservation area forest. No large machines are allowed, so the path is made with prefabricated elements that can be transported by manpower and assembled in different ways to weave the structure between the existing trees.

The material is 4 mm thick stainless steel sheet, folded to make the whole roof work as a series of beams. Each module can span up to nine meters, and can vary in size, shape and position, and be joined to a neighbouring element without losing its structural and morphological properties; a strict structural and geometric system applied to a complex site.

Landslide and avalanche prevention at Skjarvelandettag:www.architecturenorway.no,2015:/projects/travelling/skjarvelandet-2013/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

In collaboration with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, Inge Dahlman did substantial research in order to secure different stretches of road, throughout the country, that were threatened by possible landslides and snow avalanches. At Måsøy, the road needed to be upgraded and landslide prevention constructed. The 3.8 km stretch is part of Havøysundveien, a designated National Tourist Route. It was therefore important that the project was of high architectural quality, and that the identity of the site and the attractive driving experience were respected. The landslide prevention is done through three large and several small mounds along the road. 300 000 cubic meters of stone were moved for the project.

Kleivodden is located on Andøya, an island off the coast of Northern Norway. The popular rest stop and viewpoint had been almost ruined by the rocket launches taking place at the nearby space centre. The site needed to be cleared, prepared for carparking and, importantly, turned into an attractive viewpoint for visitors. The viewing platform is a simple horizontal concrete surface. At the southern end of the platform, a twelve meter wide stairway leads to the sea and functions as an amphitheatre with a spectacular view.

Town centre, Geilotag:www.architecturenorway.no,2014:/projects/travelling/geilo-2014/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

The new town centre area at Geilo was opened in autumn 2013. The existing town centre had lacked natural meeting points and good public spaces, and was chaotic to navigate for both visitors and local businesses. Arkitektgruppen Cubus won a competition in 2008 with a project aimed at turning Geilo into a “green skiing destination”. The two central elements of the project, the pedestrian zone and the amphitheatre, were built on top of a privately financed car park. The architects drew inspiration from the surrounding mountainous landscape, and the amphitheatre therefore has two “mountain ridges”, built with Corten steel. One of them serves as a central entrance to the car park, and the other holds a service room that can be used during large-scale events like skiing races and festivals. The granite surface of the amphitheatre floor is rough, suitable for BMX and mountain bikes.

The bridge is located just north of the town Sand on the west coast of Norway. It is the result of extensive design process together with Czech architect Ivan Kroupa, where the inhabitants of Sand were given the opportunity to vote on some of the initial ideas.

The bridge, which connects the town to a vast wooden landscape, consists of two steel lattice beams in corten steel clad with steel sheets, with a small concrete pavilion on the south side of the river. The structure provides an enclosed acoustic space above the middle of the river with a view through a steel grate directly down to roaring forces of the water.

This lightweight aluminium bridge completes a hiking path, gives panoramic views of the deepest canyon in Northern Europe and serves as a platform for bungee jumping.

Because of the remote location, it had to be helicoptered into place, and all aspects of the design and engineering focus on reducing the weight of the main span. The “flying weight” is 3800 kgs, and tolerances at either bridgehead, as well as installation rehearsals, were critical.

Gudbrandsjuvet Service Centretag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/projects/travelling/gudbrandsjuvet-servicecentre-2010/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

In recent years, the spectacular waterfalls at Gudbrandsjuvet have been made accessible to tourists, and visitor numbers have soared. Better service facilities were required. The new service centre comprises a café, kiosk and public WCs. The through road is closed during the winter, so from May to September the café is only occasionally in use as a meeting place for the local community. The café is also the breakfast restaurant for Juvet Landscape Hotel, which is also only open during the summer season.

The building structure is based on a triangular, prefabricated concrete element, which is floor, wall and roof in one. These elements define areas for café tables, and their geometric flexibility is similar to a bicycle chain, giving almost all the little café spaces the qualities of a corner table with a view.

Vedahaugane has been a rest stop on the trip across these mountains from time immemorial. The 90 metre concrete path leads from the parking area over to the best views of the grand landscape. The intention was to do as little as possible, and for all construction to be reversible. The path and the 25 metre long bench are supported off the ground on poles.

After completion, the artwork “Den” by American artist Mark Dion was added as an extension to the walkway. “Den” consists of an underground cave where an artificial bear sleeps on top of a heap of objects from many periods and places.

To make the road bridge safe for people taking advantage of the excellent fishing, two pedestrian bridges were added to the side of the existing bridge structure. The new bridges are attached to the existing as prefabricated steel cantilevers, structurally separate to allow separate landing points and to avoid damage in the event of a road bridge collision. The bridges are universally accessible.

The municipality of Drammen, which occupies a central position south-west of Oslo, has in the last few years put a great deal of work into developing and upgrading their urban environment, with dynamic results. Geographically, the centre of Drammen is divided in two, with the urban districts of Bragernes and Strømsø on either bank of the beautiful Drammenselva river.

A new bridge has become an important visual element linking the pedestrian routes on either side. The main principle of the design was to integrate the bridge into the river landscape and limit the impact on the surrounding environment.

The Bragernes bank is a popular place from which to view the river and the town. The Y-shaped plan of the bridge, which splits into two arms as it reaches the shore, has preserved the small inlet on this bank as a landscape space. The Y-shape also provides extra length and height to the span, providing a free navigable height under the bridge of 6 x 15 metres, and giving a user-friendly gradient that satisfies the requirements of universal design.

The bridge has a main span of 90 metres with a 4-metre wide steel deck, and two 45-metre side spans, each with a 3-metre steel deck. It is entirely supported by cables attached to two 47-metre towers. The towers and the double side spans provide good lateral stiffness and stability. All the steel parts are painted white and the deck is paved with crushed white granite embedded in resin.

The steel structure was produced by a steelworks in Sandnessjøen and transported down the coast by sea. The construction was carried out by free extension of the elements of the main span in 10-metre lengths towards the anchor on the Strømsø side.

The project includes a new service building with toilet and a waiting room, as well as refurbishment of an existing kiosk and the outdoor areas. The limited available area has allowed for a number of experiments on the structure, transparency and construction of the building. The aluminium structure is turned inside out, giving it an internal surface of structural glazing protected externally by a timber structure clad with translucent fibreglass sheeting, which covers services and lighting installations.

The temperature inside is low, but convector heaters with movement sensors are triggered on entry. The building has full universal access.

The viewpoint is located at the edge of a cliff, at a hairpin bend in the road. Only the middle of the 44-metre structure is anchored to the ground, cantilevering out to the west and the east. The platform is only 10 centimetres thick, with enough flexibility in the steel beams to give a dramatic experience. A wire mesh railing allows for the movement. The structure is wheelchair accessible.

The building replaces a toilet that was lifted off its foundations by a hurricane. The new building needed to be heavy and well anchored. Initial plans for a concrete structure were scrapped to allow local shipbuilding industry to make the building from 10 and 12 mm sheet corten steel. The facility is for summer use only and not insulated. The building is universally accessible.

Trollstigen Service Centre and Café, Raumatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2010:/projects/travelling/trollstigen-2010-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

Trollstigen is one of the most spectacular stretches of road in Norway, zigzagging up through the enormous Isterdalen Valley. The stopping point at the top receives about half a million visitors a year.

This project was based on a competition in 2004, and aims to integrate landscape and architecture in one unified complex. The built structures cover a large area, and are subjected to dramatic extremes of weather and climate, from snow to flooding.

All functions are located in one concentrated structure, with a clear entrance and parking facilities. From here, all buildings and other elements work with each other: walkways and bridges, picnic areas, viewing platforms, flood barriers, the little hydroelectric power generator and the new visitors’ centre.

The design is based on the nature and the people of Selvika Bay, which was first settled five thousand years ago. A slow amble along the concrete ramp takes both able-bodied and disabled visitors from the road down to the beach, offering a sequence of different views along the way. At the road end there is car- and bicycle parking and toilet facilities, and at the beach end there is a fire pit and an outdoor kitchen and seating.

Bekkestua is a central public transport node in the suburban municipality of Bærum outside Oslo, connecting bus, tramway and metro routes. The former village has been developed in recent years with housing and new commerce, and is now a small town. The station is centrally located, and a main task was to achieve maximum connectivity from surrounding roads and pedestrian infrastructure.

From the central square, stairs and a ramp lead down to the platform, while a ramp and elevator also connect up to the bus- and taxi stops. Another ramp and stair further east connects to the pedestrian- and cycle lanes.

The roof above the platform follows these movements of people along stairs and ramps. The structure is based on a simple geometry with laminated timber beams laid on a central steel structure. Thin Lexan sheets give weather protection. The ramps and stairs are in in-situ concrete, supported by a V-shaped column.

Trollveggen is the highest sheer cliff face in Europe. The existing roadside facilities for travellers along the narrow valley at the bottom of Trollveggen needed upgrading, and the new facility comprises parking and outdoor elements like bridges and seating in addition to the visitors’ centre.

The simple plan includes a café, restroom, commercial areas and an auditorium. The vertical articulation, however, with its series of triangulated prisms constructed with slender steel columns and branch structures, shows off the full height of the cliff face.

The exterior cladding is glazing and spruce panelling, stained black. Interior walls and ceilings are finished in pine plywood. The floor is polished concrete. The building is only designed for summer occupation, which allows for slender detailing.

The tourist route stretches along the eastern side of the mountain massive of Rondane, where this new rest area functions both as an important trailhead for hikers, as well as a natural stopping point and information centre for car tourists.

The building consists of two parts, a heated shelter and toilet facilities. Between the two lies the information kiosk. The shelter opens up towards north, with views out to the river and the forest. The buildings are constructed in in-situ concrete. Railings are made from steel, doors and windows from pine wood. The facilites have high emphasis on universal design.

The commission was to design an airport of the highest international standard with a future capacity of 40–50 million passengers a year. It was to be a gateway to India, representative of a high level of culture and technology, and to act as a locomotive for economic growth and development in the region. Hyderabad, where the airport is located, is the fifth largest city in India, with a population of approximately 5 million, and together with Bangalore it is one of the main hubs of the rapidly growing Indian IT industry.

The airport lies about 30 kilometres outside the city centre, and covers an area of approximately 25 square kilometres. The site is a gently rolling agricultural landscape with palms, fruit trees, rice fields and small rocky knolls. Two long ridges enclosing a shallow valley form a natural framework for the development. One of the main principles of the project was flexibility and the potential for rapid growth in capacity, and the airport has expanded rapidly.

Part of the challenge was to give the airport a distinct identity and a sense of place – it was to say: This is India! This is Hyderabad!

Based on a systematic approach to the environment, the place and the mood, the architects achieved diversity in the form of:

– A modern, efficient and attractive terminal building adapted to local climatic conditions and available building technology,

– A spacious Airport Village for meeters and greeters, with shops, services and restaurants, protected from the sun and rain by a fabric roof structure, in front of the terminal building,

– A large shady park beyond the Airport Village, with seating and access to parking, bus terminal, hotels, etc.

The technological solutions were adapted to what was technically and financially feasible, and energy and the environment were emphasised throughout the planning and construction processes. The shape of the roof has been specifically designed to cope with the sun, and double glazing and insulation in the walls and roof reduce the need for artificial cooling. The energy-saving measures have earned the building a high LEED rating. The subcontractors came from many different countries but the workforce was mainly Indian. The building process seemed at times to be somewhat chaotic, since century-old building traditions were being combined with highly sophisticated modern building technology. The airport was built over a 3.5-year period by 7000 workers.

The brief called for the design of extensive groundworks surrounding a new ferry quay, as well as a new service building for passengers. The response has been to try to minimise the circulation area, whilst giving the quay and its structures a clear sculptural form.

The project has been a design-and-build contract, and most elements have been prefabricated. The service building consists of two in-situ concrete walls, supporting an inverted steel vault. The vault stabilises the rest of the glass and timber structure, and covers the outdoor waiting areas.

This municipal kindergarten is constructed in the shell of a former car showroom in the urban ecology area of Svartlamoen, as the first step of a total transformation of the existing commercial complex.

The big showroom windows give good contact with the outdoor play areas, and ceiling height in the indoor spaces, unthinkable in a new-build project, give generous opportunities for a variety of play- and work spaces. Service spaces are in a compact row along the back.
The kindergarten is organised with three internal “houses” around a central rooflit “square”. The houses share kitchen and art studio. The zone from floor height to 1,5 metres is especially important, and there are a number of “micro-spaces” in the walls around the communal areas: a toy shop, a cave, a stage, a mezzanine. The organisation saves on circulation space, allowing an increased play area per child.

New added materials are wood and mineral wool. All internal walls are in solid timber elements, each with their own geometry, prefabricated from 3D models in a CNC process.

Klong Toey is currently the largest and oldest area of informal dwellings in Bangkok. More than 140.000 people are estimated to live here. This project was intended as a tool for the community to tackle some of the social challenges in the area.

During a yearlong preparation period, the team got involved with the community through interviews, workshops and public meetings. The final structure embodies several of the features lacking in the area, including a football court, new hoops for basketball, a stage for performances or public meetings, walls for climbing and seating both inside and around the edges of the playground. The simplicity of the construction allows it to be changed and adapted as needs arise.

The 51.000 sq.m. of the new Bergen University College is comparable to a medium-sized Norwegian village. The main new structure is conceived like a metal snake, resting on eight new brick volumes. This “snake” coils around four old brick buildings, ending at the Kronstad square with a “tail” at one end and a raised “head” in the shape of a tower at the other end. This shape provides several entrances, granting easy access to the school’s many departments.
The Norwegian State Railways formerly occupied the site, with workshops in the four brick halls. These buildings now contain student facilities, cafeteria, library and sports hall. The façades and interiors of the complex are inspired by the unpretentious and characteristic architecture of the old workshops.

Landscaping

The outdoor areas of the new Bergen University College campus at Kronstad measure approx. 26 900 sq.m., more than half of the campus’ total area.
Several gardens and outdoor zones have been created, incorporating principles of universal access as well as durability. The school offers parking for 900 bicycles, and the main access is by public transport.

Nord-Østerdal Upper Secondary School is the result of an open design competition. It brings together both vocational and academic subjects under one roof, as well as providing after hours facilities for the local community.

The school is located on a hill on the outskirts of the village of Tynset. The compact plan allows for the retention of much of the existing vegetation, as well as the required integration of practical and theoretical teaching. The square, covered yard, necessary during the -extremely cold Tynset winters, is the heart of the school. Teaching rooms are located along the perimeter to maximize daylight.

The use of timber was a competition requirement. The complex is mainly clad in wood, inside and out, and the lofty pine columns are the “yard trees” of the central space.

In 2005, Cubus were asked to examine the possibility of locating a new sports hall at Årstad in Bergen. The limits of the originally proposed site, however, quickly required a rethink, and the sports facility was replanned as part of the rehab and extension of the existing Ny-Krohnborg School from 1924. The project was extended to include culturalvand after-school sports facilities for the larger community.

To make the most of the site, the sports hall was placed beneath the schoolyard, which is landscaped according to the functional requirements below. The existing building has been renovated, and the old brick walls, stone foundations and slate roofs are reflected in the colours of the modern materials of the new extension.

The outdoor parts of the project include the schoolyard, a kindergarten playground and the Møregaten pedestrian street.

Libraries are dynamic and continually changing. This library balances well-understood pre-existing needs with the emerging needs of the present and future. Main library functions include collections, learning commons, group study rooms, graduate commons, creativity labs, and a quiet reading room. The building also integrates complementary functions not specifically related to library use. These include a political think tank as well as facilities for academic offices and an auditorium.

The use of an automated book delivery system (ABDS) for the two million volume collection was a cost and space saver as well as an innovative way to maximize user space. Generous open spaces connect all floors of the library and open stairs emphasize an interactive and social environment alongside more focused study areas. The building has been designed to LEED Silver requirements.

Stavanger Culture School and Stavanger Cathedral School Bjergstedtag:www.architecturenorway.no,2013:/projects/learning/stavanger-kultur-2012/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

The Bjergsted Vision is a planning initiative gathering a number of cultural institutions to the Bjergsted area on the Stavanger seafront, near the new Concert Hall. The Culture School, a local school for cultural activities, and Stavanger Cathedral School, a college focussing on culture, are the latest additions to the cluster.

Following a design competition in 2007, Arkitekturverkstedet/Asplan Viak’s project combines the two schools, incorporates an existing building and creates a new urban space facing the harbour, connected through the buildings to the Bjergsted Park on the flanking hill.

The college centres on a common space penetrating the building and tying the park to the sea. The cultural school echoes the simple volume of the nearby concert hall. Both buildings are based on a heavy orthogonal core, containing the performance halls, wrapping the outer spaces in a lighter, freer zinc-clad shell.

Transformer is an urban development project where small, marginal areas and openings in the urban landscape are used as temporary art arenas for children and youngsters. The project was initiated by gallery R-O-M for Art and Architecture, artist Vigdis Storsveen and Rintala Eggertsson Arkitekter in 2011. The stage pavilion was built in a workshop with interior- and furniture design students from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2012.

”Show me how you play and I will show who you are”, says Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galliano. The domain of play, even in the most everyday engagement with children, draws on our capacity for experimentation and creativity. The cave at Breidablikk Kindergarten was inspired by natural caves, offering sun and rain, hiding and climbing.

The limited budget led to the use of leftover material: 1,5 tonnes of pre-industrial waste, an XP foam shredded into in smaller particles and then thermally bonded into sheets. The space is cut out of the sheets out by subtractive manufacturing technology, and glued up by layering the material to reconstruct the milled cave.

In the fall of 2010, three Norwegian architecture students initiated and constructed a study centre for street children in Tacloban, in collaboration with the children’s’ families and Streetlight, a local aid organisation.

Streetlight offers families in the slums of Tacloban help to get their children off the streets and into school. They cover meals, uniforms, books and help with homework, currently to about 70 children. The aim of the building project was to think strategically to maximise the positive effects of each step of the building process.

Having mapped the local resources and social conditions, the group used a series of modelling and playing workshops to challenge traditional hierarchies, and succeeded in getting the mothers, the fathers and the children to participate equally in the design- and building process, to take responsibility and gain experience.

The children told their parents what their dreams were for the future. Then they listed what they needed to study and do their homework: a library, reading nooks, lights, good air, furniture. The mothers then designed the furniture and gathered materials to build it, and started planning meals and other provisions. Then they challenged the fathers – poor day labourers – to take part in the building construction.

The centre was only half finished when the Norwegian students left. Perhaps the biggest success of the project was how the process continued, that the people involved all took the responsibility to see it through to completion. Streetlight’s aim is to build another two study centres, as soon as funds allow.

Bjørnholt School in the south of Oslo has been designed with new pedagogical concepts in mind. This requires rooms to be dimensioned differently to a traditional upper secondary school. Learning takes place in open common areas shared by different subjects, surrounded by group rooms of various sizes, laboratories and work rooms. This results in effective use of space, but entails a more complex and demanding planning process. The volumes must be large, open and transparent, and there are special requirements regarding fire safety and escape routes, noise and acoustics and, not least, ventilation, heating, cooling and lighting. Importance has been attached to the need for mingle areas, seating units and open circulation areas adapted to various sizes of student groups. The basic concept of the school requires co-use of functions by the different areas of study, and the fundamental visions carry political goals associated with integration and learning in a neighbourhood with a large multicultural population. Bjørnholt has courses for the International Baccalaureate as well as courses in media, music, dance and drama and building and construction. This results in a lively and varied environment.

The school and the indoor sports arena, is built as a self-contained building complex, where the unifying element is the roof. The school building itself is divided into two parts, with a semi-glass-covered area between them. This area is occupied by the library, which is also open to the local population. The various academic departments are placed around communal areas and a canteen. Each department has its own group rooms and seminar rooms and workshops, staff rooms and course administration. Auditoriums, shared group rooms, learning and self-study areas are located in the centre of the building. The vocational courses have well-equipped workshops with access for vehicles and their own laboratories, an IT department and a department for special needs education. On the opposite side is the Department for Music, Dance and Drama, with “black boxes” on two floors. There is also an adapted education department for autistic pupils and other pupils with special needs. This has a separate entrance and a protected outdoor area.

The materials have a rough character with a lot of visible in-situ concrete combined with steel and glass. Bold colours and forms flirt with an otherwise cool expression.

A protected margarine factory from the 1920’s has been extended and converted into a pedagogically innovative kindergarten for 500 children. The spatial qualities of the existing building have been utilised, and the original column structure proved flexible enough for new functional solutions, allowing a number of new types of activities for the children.

On the adjoining site a new extension in steel and concrete, with a timber facade, helps screen the outdoor play areas from the road.

Landscape architecture

The outdoor play areas of the kindergarten are organised around the same elements as the surrounding city – houses, streets and squares as well as labyrinths and gardens. Each group of children have a home area, a base from which they can venture out and explore the more public themed rooms and places.

This kindergarten was aimed specifically at providing children, who are normally not consulted in the design of their environments, a rich architectonic experience.

The site is in an area of historic interest, adjacent to a local park, which allows the use of timber in the construction in contrast to the surrounding masonry. There are four types of windows, adjusted to child heights, which give differentiated daylight in the rooms.
The kindergarten houses four playgroups, with a common gathering area and kitchen. Staff areas and art- and crafts rooms are on the upper level.

Good daylighting, minimum south exposure, connection to district heating, high insulation levels and timber construction all contribute to a good energy score.

The people in the Min Buri neighbourhood are classed as “urban poor”, and the former market area has deteriorated into near slum conditions. Tyin wanted to engage in a project that could have a positive effect on a wider community, and the collaboration with CASE Studio Architects allowed them to work in an urban context.

The library is a renovation of a hundred year old brick structure backing onto a canal. Because of flooding risks important areas have been raised, and a mezzanine provides structural stability. Local and recycled materials are used throughout.

In the autumn of 2008, Tyin tegnestue travelled to Noh Bo, a small village on the border between Thailand and Burma, to work for a home for refugee children.

The idea was to give the children an opportunity for privacy similar to the experience of a normal family home. The result was six sleeping houses, which were nicknamed the “butterfly houses” because of their roof shape. The roofs aid natural ventilation and collect rainwater. The structure is lifted off the ground to avoid damp penetration, which is an improvement on local building traditions.

Safe Haven Library, Ban Tha Song Yang, Thailand

Architects: Tyin tegnestue, Rintala Eggertsson and students from NTNU, Trondheim
In January 2009, Tyin invited 15 students from NTNU to a workshop at Safe Haven Orphanage. The orphanage needed a library and new sanitary facilities. Food and education are the most important things the orphanage has to offer the children, but the library is also a place for play and for social gatherings.

The library stands on a foundation of local stone. A concrete block wall cools the building during the day, and an open bamboo façade allows ventilation.

Safe Haven Bathhouse, Thailand

Architects: Tyin tegnestue and students from NTNU, Trondheim
The hot and humid climate of Northern Thailand makes personal hygiene important. The new sanitary building contains toilets and washing facilities in two concrete rooms with an open bathing area in the centre. Drainage has to be solved locally, and has to allow for the wet season. The toilet floors are drained gravel and can be hosed down.

Ny York kindergarten is located by the Akerselva River in an existing 19th century building. It caters for 65 children in four groups, organised around a common auditorium stair for joint events: Music, theatre, play and dance.

The scale has been manipulated in a continuous sequence of compressed and open spaces, some accessible only for children. The large auditorium stair is a large piece of furniture tying the smaller rooms together.

Space Group also conducted a study where the children were given video cameras to record their experience of the spaces.

Haugen/Zohar were invited by the Municipality of Trondheim to provide a proposal for an outdoor project for a kindergarten. The architects wanted to combine the usual playground facilities with a room that provided shelter from the weather, for bonfires, storytelling and play. The budget was extremely limited, and the design is based on a structure built of short planks, recycled materials from a building site in the neighbourhood. The inspiration was derived from the old Norwegian turf huts and log cabins, and the little timber construction consists of 80 circles in layers placed on top of each other on an illuminated concrete platform. The circles have different radiuses, and are displaced in relation to each other. Each circle consists of 28 pieces of naturally impregnated pine heartwood, placed at varying distances in order to achieve a chimney effect and natural lighting. Oak spacers create varying vertical distances between the pine planks and ensure air throughflow so that the pine planks are able to dry out. A double-curved sliding door makes it possible to close off and lock the fireplace.

The project was the winning entry in an invited competition in 2007. It is designed for four parallel groups, years 8-10, a total of 320 pupils, organised within one compact volume. In this way you get short circulation distances and a plan practically without corridors, with lots of opportunity for social contact in the inner landscape of the school. The centre of the building is the open school ”square”. A large, circular cut in the roof plane gives daylight and air to the square and the adjoining rooms. A tilted south-facing wall has integrated seating next to the outdoor sports arena.

There is a great variation of spaces within the plan, with open surfaces as well as spaces kept within distinct volumes. Each year has its own area of the plan, but flexibility allows for a great variation of uses. Parts of the school can be separated off and hired out to the local community for evening use. Some of the rooms are ”inverted” – exterior atria, cuts in the main volume for outdoor teaching and to aid daylight penetration. These atria are also connected with the surrounding landscaping as ”piers”. Adjacent to each of these atria is a ventilation tower covered in coloured glass.

Universal access has been given priority. Contrast between different surfaces and furnishing elements and the provision of lead lines are some of the interior features. Materiality and colour scheme has also been adapted to aid orientation.

Ryerson Student Learning Centre is the newest building on the urban commuter campus. Inspired by the historical gathering spaces of the Stoas and Agoras in ancient Greece, the Student Learning Centre gives students eight uniquely-designed floors of open study facilities, and connects the campus to the surrounding cityscape.

A south-facing raised platform opens the street corner for a broad range of pedestrian activities, an elevated space that creates a welcoming yet protected urban edge shared by students and the general public. Inside, the lobby acts as a multi-purpose forum with integrated seating and performance technology for events ranging from pep rallies to fashion shows and music performances.

Each floor of the building offers a different kind of space with a unique atmosphere, inspired by themes found in nature, from “The Sky” on the top floor and “The Beach” on sixth, to “The Forest” and “The Garden” – all providing differing learning programs with student services, traditional quiet study areas, and classrooms.

The façades of the building are composed of a digitally-printed fritted glass that envelops the exposed concrete structure. The varying façade pattern controls heat gain into the building and frames views of the city grid and nearby buildings.

Arena Bekkestua at Nadderud Sports Park just outside Oslo is a multi-use facility for young people. It has an activity area of approximately 1000 sq.m. indoors, and approximately 3000 sq.m. outdoors. Activities accommodated by the facility include skateboarding, BMX, inline, new circus, dance, concerts and fashion shows. Arena is intended to meet the activity needs of a constantly changing youth culture. While the facility is designed for current activities, it must be rapidly adaptable to new ones. With this point of departure, the architects have created flexible areas with potential for different uses.
By varying the size and degree of finish of the areas, the building satisfies a wide variety of needs. This is most clearly manifest in the juxtaposition of the two main volumes of the building: a hall designed for rough activities and an inserted section with a higher degree of finish. Large doorways in the long sides of the hall connect outdoor and indoor areas. Areas of glass and translucent plastic also provide different forms of exposure. The building has a daily average of about 300
visitors in addition to events for up to 1200 people.
Youth representatives took part in the programming and planning of the facility. Owing to their diversity and their ability to enthusiastically engage and promote participation, the activities of the young cultural practitioners provide a central arena for the formation of identity, dissemination of knowledge and general socialising.

Knut Hamsun, Norway’s most inventive 20th-century writer, created new forms of expression in his first novel, Hunger. He went on to found a truly modern school of fiction with his works Pan, Mysteries, and Growth of the Soil.
This centre dedicated to Hamsun is located above the Arctic Circle near the village of Presteid on Hamarøy near the farm where the writer grew up. The 2300 sq.m. centre includes exhibition areas, a library and reading room, a café, and an auditorium. The building is conceived as an archetypal and intensified compression of spirit in space and light, concretizing a Hamsun character in architectonic terms. The concept for the museum, “Building as a Body: Battleground of Invisible Forces,” is realized both inside and outside. Here, the wood exterior is punctuated by hidden impulses piercing through the surface: An ”empty violin case”-balcony has phenomenal sound properties, while a viewing balcony is like the ”girl with her sleeves rolled up polishing yellow panes.” Many other aspects of the building use the vernacular style as inspiration for reinterpretation. The stained black wood exterior skin is characteristic of the great Norwegian stave churches. On the roof garden, long grass alludes to traditional Norwegian sod roofs in a modern way. The rough white-painted concrete interiors are characterized by diagonal rays of light calculated to ricochet through the section on certain days of the year. These strange, surprising, and phenomenal experiences in space, perspective and light provide an inspiring frame for exhibitions.

On the island of Tautra in the Trondheim Fjord lies a new convent for eighteen nuns. It contains a small church and all the necessary facilities for the nuns’ life and work. The clients are nuns from various countries, all members of the Cistercian order, who have gathered to realise the vision of creating a new convent precisely here. The ruins of an earlier Cistercian convent, founded in 1207, already lie elsewhere on the island.
An important aspect of the convent as an institution is the nuns’ contemplative life. This has had consequences for the architecture. One of the first ideas was to create a low building with a number of gardens that would provide light and create a feeling of seclusion while at the same time opening up the magnificent view across the fjord. Through the glass wall of the refectory, they have a view of the sea and the mountains behind. The convent functions in such a way that, when one of the main rooms is in use, all of the nuns are usually gathered there. The remaining rooms can then be used as passageways. Most of the rooms occur only once in the plan, and have to fulfil a variety of requirements. A system of rooms with overlapping corners together form seven separate enclosed gardens. Modules are almost only reiterated in the plan when rooms have the same function, such as the private cells. Owing to the varying room sizes, this has resulted in a rather complex plan.
The main structure of the building is of laminated spruce, framed in with laminated timber beams. The covering of Norwegian slates functions rather like a raincoat. The nuns have been active clients, and have planned several parts of the convent themselves, including the landscaping and fencing around the property as well as the design of the seven gardens. This has been done with the help of specialist craftsmen and people from the local parish.

The new Bøler Church is the result of an open architectural competition in 2004. The church stretches across a falling terrain, with the main functions either elevated on a plateau or dug into the ground. The main spaces are oriented vertically and connected by a processional axis. Administrative and support functions are located in the side wings. There is a parish kindergarten and youth club at basement level.

The main church hall is entered through an anteroom, and the ceiling lifts towards the far wall. The glazed areas of the sidewalls give glimpses of the vegetation outside and the shifting seasons. The main roof structure is steel, supported by brick and concrete and concealed by a timber ceiling. Flat roofs have a green sedum covering.

Furnishings in the main church hall are designed by Hole design AS in collaboration with the architects.

Landscape architecture

The main focus of the landscaping around Bøler Church has been to welcome people and lead them around. The characteristics of the site are the nearby Bøler brook, the view of the Østensjøvannet Lake and the forest to the north. The main materials are in-situ concrete, used throughout to negotiate the varied terrain. The play areas for the kindergarten are filled and screened to protect the children from the nearby noisy road, and have access to the forest.

The main approach is flanked by cherry trees and lighting bollards. The outdoor spaces of the church are paved in granite with details in corten steel.

Gjøvik care centre is a centre for single asylum seekers under the age of 15. This project is a small arboretum – a garden with a collection of trees from all over the world, which tries to make a connection between the different geographies the children represent and the place where they are now.
The plan is based on a triangular projection of the world map, which is reconstructed in the foundations of the arboretum. The walls give shelter, both to the children and the foreign trees.

The Ice Music Festival at Geilo was arranged for the sixth year in 2011. All instruments and stage elements are made from snow and natural ice cut from lakes or glaciers. The quality of the ice makes the sound of the instruments change with temperature: nature is a central player in the event.

Good quality ice is essential. The ice is tested as it is cut, and rejected if there are too many air bubbles. The instruments made from ice include guitar, the traditional langeleik, drums, horns and trumpets. The festival was initiated by Norwegian musician Terje Isungset, but it is an international event featuring musicians from all over the world. Bill Covitz is the ice sculptor, and this year he collaborated with architect Helder Neves on the stage and festival area plan.

As we are reaching the end of the first decade of the 21 century, we are witnessing the consequences of human domination of the globe. Global warming, food crises and the collapse of unhealthy economical structures are some examples. At the same time, an estimated 500 species of living creatures vanish. Slowly, people are waking up to reality.
With this project, we wanted to offer some information about the biodiversity of this planet. If one looks at nature from outside, one cannot see or understand its complex beauty and vital balances. We need to get back to the grass-root level of understanding the world. We need to get our hands dirty and our mind clean. To know the world more is to love it more is to preserve it more, or at least destroy it less.

A wooden free-standing tower structure was is placed in the corner of the National Art Library staircase hall. The visitor was invited to choose this alternative, literature-filled promenade up through the stairwell, where they could choose an interesting book and withdraw to read it in a peaceful one-person reading space in the tower. The reading lights shone outwards through the structure, scattering across the surrounding gallery walls, enticing readers like a night lantern lures moths.

The books are second-hand, recycled or would be otherwise destroyed, and have been collected from publishers, libraries and universities during 2009/2010.

Outside, only the white pages of the books show, creating a unified external wall surface. The interior is a contrasting collage of colors, titles and themes. To discover contents of the books, one has to enter the tower.

The explosive urbanization that China is experiencing calls for an increased sensibility and consideration for both natural and human resources. The pavilion contributes to these issues with an architecture that facilitates social sustainability, healthy public recreational areas and environmentally friendly urban structures and infrastructures. The pavilion consists of 15 “trees”, prefabricated in timber, which create a sensory and multifunctional “forest”.
Each tree combines structure, skin, infrastructure (air-conditioning, water- and energy supply, lighting etc.), furniture, exhibition, playground and information display. The “tree” structure allows each component to be autonomous or combined with others. After the Expo, each of the “trees” can be easily dismantled and relocated elsewhere, to serve a number of uses: a park installation, playground, social meeting place etc.
The main structure is made from laminated timber. Each “tree” consists of a fabric roof, four “branches”, a “trunk” and “roots”. The components can be packed flat to make optimal use of space and transportation. A recently developed Chinese timber product, GluBam – Glue-laminated Bamboo, is used for secondary structures, the exhibitions and most of the surfaces in the pavilion. The roof of the pavilion is a four point membrane construction. The fabric shades against direct sunlight while admitting diffused light, thus saving energy for interior lighting.
The roots of the trees are shaped to give assosiations to four characteristic Norwegian landscapes: the coast, the forest, the fjords and the Arctic. The spatial characteristics and intrinsic qualities of these landscapes are the foundation of the design in the interior zones of the pavilion.

This little pavilion, located at 1250 metres above sea level within sight of the Snøhetta Mountain in central Norway, is used as a visitors’ centre for the Norwegian Wild Reindeer Centre, showcasing the rich history and wildlife of the area. The mythology, too, is important: the Dovre Mountains represent the eternal and everlasting in the Norwegian cultural consciousness.
The building is conceived as a place for contemplation – for views and for insight. A large window faces the Snøhetta Mountain. A robust 10 mm steel shell covers an organically shaped timber core, which integrates seating and forms the southern facade of the pavilion. The timber is produced by digitally controlled milling by a boat-building firm in Hardanger, and was freighted to the site in two pieces. The structure is assembled with wooden plugs, with no glue or metal fasteners. The timber is treated with real tar externally, and oiled internally. The roof is made with hollow core elements spanning the length of the building.

Hammerfest, the world’s northernmost town, lies on the coast of northern Norway as a natural centre for the region. Its location close to the North Cape makes the city one of the most important tourist destinations of the area, with over 250 000 visitors each year. The new culture centre is visible both from the sea and from land, adding a major feature to the townscape. An external skin of glass is lit up by LED lighting in the colours of ice and northern lights through the long, dark winters. In summer, the lights are turned off, and the “Hammerfest-red” wooden panelling is visible behind the glass.
The culture centre is organised in compact units, creating spaces with different degrees of public access. Internal and external public areas form social arenas that link the centre to Hammerfest town. In keeping with the principles of the proposed town plan, whereby public spaces are to connect the town with the water, the foyer is expressed as an open, climatised public space between Strandgata and the quay. “The Arctic Arena”, an outdoor auditorium, is conceptually like the other spaces that connect the main street with the North Sea, but this public space does not lie between buildings, but under a cantilevered volume. It forms the start (or end) of the development and is the face of the centre towards the town.
Transparent façades reveal the activities within the building, which, while meeting the requirements regarding professional dramatic art and cinema, is also an open and accessible location for many different users. Universal design and accessibility for all members of the public has been important. To help visually impaired persons, there are directional guide lines in the floors in public areas. Walls and doors are colour-coded.

Alstahaug municipality in Nordland county is known for its magnificent landscape, bordered by the mountain range ”The Seven Sisters” on one side and on the other 1200 islands and skerries, which have given it the name “kingdom of a thousand islands”. The Petter Dass Museum is situated in the grounds of a long-established church 20 kilometres from the town of Sandnessjøen. The site consists of a church, a churchyard, a parsonage and several other buildings including the original museum, which was opened in 1966. This has now been extended by a new museum building and parking facilities that were designed by Snøhetta in 2007.
The parsonage was the home of the Norwegian poet Petter Dass, who was parson of Alstahaug from 1689 to 1707, although the present 18th-century parsonage was built some years later. The complex and its surroundings are a popular recreational area for both tourists and the local population, and the museum is a national documentation and resource centre based on Petter Dass and his significant position in Norwegian and Nordic cultural history.
Snøhetta was responsible for the project from 2001 until its completion. The aim was to design a new museum building, a landscape plan for the surrounding site, parking facilities and a service building. During the process the architect rejected the site proposed by the client on the grounds that building a new museum there would deflect attention away from the historic surroundings. Instead a cut was made in the rocky landscape west of the church and a freestanding building constructed between the two wire-cut rock walls. The new museum thus respects the historic site and serves as a visual expression of the historical span between the date when the church was built and the present.

Oslo’s new museum of architecture, a branch of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, has taken over the oldest premises of the Norwegian Central Bank, designed by Christian Grosch and completed in 1830 as one of Norway’s first monumental buildings in the Empire (Regency) style. Sverre Fehn was the architect for both the refurbishment of the old building and the new exhibition pavilion.
The aim of the refurbishment was to recreate the original character of the buildings while accentuating the structure in the interaction with new elements and spaces. All undesirable modern additions have been removed. The original spatial dimensions and features have been partly restored, adapted and refined, and the façades of the main building have been restored to their original appearance.
The idea behind the pavilion was to create an introverted situation, where daylight, the view of the sky and the surrounding environment all play an important role in the experience of the space. The ground plan is a square, with four massive pillars bearing a delicate shell-shaped roof of light concrete. The façades are of glass, and form a thin layer between outdoor and indoor areas. The pavilion is surrounded by external concrete walls, which extend the sense of space, and give the exhibitions a muted backdrop. Throughout the project, a restrained palette of materials is employed. Tile, white pine, lime plaster. Fittings and new building elements are primarily of oak, glass, marble and stainless steel. The pavilion is constructed of light in-situ concrete.
Access to the museum is through the original building. The main entrance leads in to the functions for the general public, such as the lobby with the reception, bookshop, café and exhibition rooms. Temporary exhibitions are shown in the pavilion, while the museum’s permanent collection will be housed in the former repository building. To the south, there is access to the park, where there is outdoor catering during the summer months. The museum’s administration, library and assembly rooms are on the first floor. The two top floors of the repository building are used as archives for photography and drawing collections and for registration.

The Lantern, Sandnestag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/projects/culture/lantern-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

Development of the sea front in Sandnes in recent years has meant that the commercial harbour and industry has been displaced by housing, shopping centres, hotels, a civic centre and a college. Langgata is a street in the old quarter of the town, a busy pedestrian area with market, shops, cafés and nightlife. However, the old quarter is cut off from the sea by the railway, a challenge for which Sandnes Town Council has wanted to find a solution. As part of the “Norwegian Wood” project, it was decided that a roof would be erected over the central square in Langgata, to add an attraction to the old quarter and meet the increasing competition from the harbour area.
The semitransparent roof structure, with its iconographic barn shape, is supported by clustered oak columns. The columns spread out to distribute the weight of the roof and stabilize the structure. Benches and service conduits have been integrated into the columns. It was originally proposed that the roof structure should be a self-supporting double shell of composite materials, epoxy or polyester, but this was not permitted since it involved use of solvents. Finally, the natural choice was found to be wood and glass, in the form of a three-dimensional latticework, constructed of narrow wooden staves. The columns are constructed of 150 x 150 mm solid oak. The columns can remain untreated, and the hardness of the oak will help to withstand mechanical wear and tear in an exposed urban environment. The wooden structure is covered by a weatherproof skin of glass plates, overlapped to enable the glass to be mounted directly on the wooden framework without the use of steel profiles or sealants.

The new Nansen Park was opened in September 2008. The park is part of an extensive transformation of Fornebu, Norway’s former main airport just outside Oslo. Closure of the airport in 1998 freed up an enormous area of land, enabling one of the largest clearance and redevelopment projects in the country. An entirely new community is to be developed, complete with dwellings, services and infrastructure, and in the middle of it a large unifying recreation area, the Nansen Park.
The area is situated on a peninsula with wide open spaces surrounded by the sea and by Oslo’s hilly landscape. Guiding principles for the design of the park have been the experience of tranquillity, beautiful views and harmonious forms, coupled with opportunities for physical recreation. The landscape architects have attempted to restore the soft, organic forms of the original landscape in dynamic interaction with the taut, straight lines of the former airport.
The old airport control tower and the former terminal building to the north constitute “Tower Square”, which forms the entry point to the park. From here, a watercourse runs from north to south throughout the length of the park, receiving the surface water from adjacent housing areas and roads. Open green channels and swales have been established to carry the water down to a central lake, where it is purified by biological sand filters, mechanical strainers and pumps.
Other collection points are the “Festival Plaza” and the “Strip”, with clear reference to the former runway. The Strip has been formed by layering various materials characteristic of Fornebu’s geology. Broad granite steps lead down to the lake, which is flanked by a broad wooden deck, a strip of river pebbles and an area of polished concrete embedded with green runway lights. The Festival Plaza has a floor of large, bevelled granite flagstones. To the south, the floor slopes evenly down into the lake.
A large amphitheatre is available for performances of various kinds, or just as a quiet place to sit. There are plans for a café adjacent to the Festival Plaza.
Seven arms of the park, with widths varying from 30 to 100 metres, reach out in all directions, enabling people to move around all over Fornebu. Various recreational activities have been located in these arms, such as sand volleyball courts, adventure playground, a large climbing net and wooden sitting, running and rolling elements. The various parts of the Nansen Park are connected by a network of walkways/cycleways as well as narrow gravelled paths.
A strong ecological profile forms the foundation for the whole transformational process. Polluted grounds have been cleaned. Asphalt and concrete have been retrieved and reused. New soil for cultivation has been made from masses from the site, with the addition of composted sewer sludge. Large volumes of earth and rock have been moved within the Fornebu area in order to transform the flat airport area into a landscape with different spatial qualities. Importance has been attached to using eco-labelled materials. Future maintenance is also to be carried out in accordance with ecological principles.

The Geopark, Stavangertag:www.architecturenorway.no,2008:/projects/culture/geopark-2008/2017-01-11T03:27:55+11:00

Stavanger, the administrative centre of the Norwegian petroleum industry, has during the last 40 years accumulated significant physical and knowledge-based resources around the harvesting, processing and distribution of oil and gas. The urgent challenges of this industry has ignored reflection on a broader application of these resources.
Transferring the resources originally developed for the production of fossil energy to other fields of knowledge, and the engineering of more ecological and humane environments, has been a point of departure for several of Helen &amp; Hard’s projects, including the Geopark.
The Geopark directly applies three different types of resource. First, the industry’s geological and seismic expertise, second, it’s production and handling of technology, materials and waste related to offshore-platforms, and third, the ideas of several youth groups and young individuals for a future park in the city centre.
An interaction between these resource groups and Helen &amp; Hard resulted in a 2500 sq.m. waterfront youth-park and outdoor science centre for the adjacent Norwegian Petroleum Museum.
An initial intention was to give a tangible experience of the oil and gas reservoir ”Troll”, hidden 2000 – 3000 metres below the seabed. The geological strata and associated drilling and production technology, reconstructed in a scale of 1:500, gives the outlines of the primary topography for Geopark.
This “geo-landscape” is further developed in a sequence of playful and empirical steps, and programmed in workshops with youth groups for various activities like biking, climbing, exhibition, concerts, jumping, ball play and “chill-out” areas. The oil layer in the Troll field, with its drilling wells, is represented as a skating park, and the geological folds are reused as exhibition walls for graffiti and street art. The surfaces and installations are reconstructed out of recycled and reshaped elements from the petroleum installations, the abandoned Frigg platform, offshore bases, equipment suppliers and scrap heaps.
The park is thriving. Kids, parents and youngsters are using the park at all hours, turning a formerly abandoned site into a humming social meeting point. Local newspapers, politicians and park users are now fighting to make the park, which was originally planned as temporary, a permanent feature.

The Bjørvika pier forms one side of Oslo’s inner harbour basin, and has for centuries been one of Oslo’s points of contact with the world. However, with the decline in harbour activity, the site became underused and was in a state of decay. The Opera House was conceived as a lever for upgrading this part of the city and help transform it into a mixed use development area.

Programme and general organisation

The building links the city with the fjord, and the hills to the east with the historical centre of the city to the west. It marks the contrast between the solid earth here and the fluid water there, and is at the same time a meeting point between land and sea, Norway and the world, art and everyday life - the point where the public meets the artist.

The design for the Opera House was the winning entry in the international architectural competition in 2000. The building programme was complex, and naturally changes were made during the process, but the basic concept proposed in the competition entry has been retained.

The building concept consists of three parts: the Wave Wall, the Factory and the Carpet. The Wave Wall separates the public areas from the stage, and the immense four-storey-high oak wall symbolises the threshold that the public must cross in order to meet the arts of opera and dance. The Factory is the production area, while the Carpet is the 18 000 sq.m. marble roofscape that gives the building its monumental quality.

The interior of the building is divided into two by a north–south corridor called the Opera Street, which serves as the main communication artery for the staff: almost 600 people representing 50 different occupations. The Factory is situated on the east side of the Opera Street, and consists of almost 1000 rooms of varying sizes and different functions.

On the west side of the Opera Street lie the public areas and the stages. These have a freer form and in some cases very high ceilings. A marble-clad plaza leads the public to the main entrance and the foyer, which has a vast glazed south-facing wall that provides a panoramic view over the Oslo Fjord. The building can accommodate up to 2000 people on a performance night, approximately 1400 in the main auditorium, 400 in Stage 2 and 150 in Rehearsal Room 1.

The main auditorium

The main auditorium is a classic horseshoe theatre built for opera and ballet, with 1370 seats. The orchestra pit is highly flexible and the height and area can be adjusted to three separate sizes. On either side of the stage are mobile towers that allow the width of the proscenium to be adapted to ballet or opera. Reverberation time is fine-tuned by drapes along the rear walls. The architectonic intention – a modern auditorium for the appreciation of traditional, unamplified musical expressions – was developed to meet the visual intimacy and acoustic excellence required by the building programme. In older opera halls, acoustic attenuation was often achieved by the use of richly decorated sculptural elements on walls, ceilings and balconies, but in the present case a modern architectonic language has been used. The double curvature of the balcony fronts and the oval ceiling ring consist of pre-fabricated oak elements made of solid pieces glued together, treated with ammonia and then oiled and polished.

Art and materials

Snøhetta believes in close collaboration with the artists during all building projects. Right from the competition phase the architect’s intention was to involve the artists in the design of both the large marble-clad roofscape and the aluminium-clad facades. At an early stage of the competition three main materials were specified: white stone for the Carpet, timber for the Wave Wall, and metal for the Factory, giving it an industrial look. The Italian marble La Facciata was chosen for the Carpet and oak for the Wave Wall and the floor, walls, balcony fronts, reflectors and ceilings. The metal panels were punched with convex spherical segments and concave conical forms; the pattern was developed by the artists on the basis of traditional weaving techniques.

This pavilion was erected to house the works of sculptor Knut Steen, in the grounds of the Midtåsen estate from 1933. The estate includes a terraced park with sculptures, old oak trees, pines and planting. The project includes new pathways, service roads and toilet facilities.

The pavilion is not climatized. The wedge-shaped plan opens towards the view and gives the art a neutral background. The materials are light concrete and glass, and the detailing demonstrates the freedom of an unheated structure.

Beneath the tallest mountain in Norway, Galdhøpiggen, lies Juvflya and Mímisbrunnr Klimapark 2469. The glacier Juvfonna is currently melting and retracting, revealing arrowheads and clothing more than 1000 years old. Archaeology and climate change meet in this “climate park”, where visitors, especially children, can learn about on-going climate change processes and the interaction between humans and the environment. Dahlman designed a 1.1 km walkway, which leads the visitors to the entrance of an ice tunnel that takes them 90 metres into the glacier. Here is Mímisbrunnr, the well of knowledge and wisdom in Norse mythology. The walkway is made of heartwood pine and glass fibre grating.

Bok &amp; Blueshuset is a cultural centre incorporating several functions under one roof – a library, a cinema, a museum, a school of music and performing arts, a blues venue, a recording studio and administration offices for local cultural institutions. The building has a simple geometrical structure inspired by Notodden’s historical industrial architecture. Several volumes are stacked together enclosing a central “square”, where three towers bring daylight down into the interiors of the building. The three towers form a distinct silhouette, making Bok &amp; Blueshuset a recognizable landmark. Inside, the tower spaces enable visual contact between the building’s different functions and provide views of the surrounding landscape through glazed façades. The building was planned as a wooden structure, but for financial reasons the wood was replaced with concrete. Outside, several new spaces have been created along lake Heddalsvatnet, providing public access to the waterfront.

The two buildings of the culture centre Stormen in Bodø, an 11.200 sq.m. concert hall and a 6.300 sq.m. library, have been constructed on the last two vacant urban blocks in the city centre. Shallow pitched roof forms reflect the shape of the surrounding hills and islands, and when seen from the harbour and the sea they appear to conjoin and become a single piece. The façades are white pre-cast concrete elements, stacked and self-supporting. The concrete contains a high proportion of white marble aggregate, and the surfaces reflect the extraordinary light of this sub-Arctic region. The internal surfaces are a combination of oak plywood, terrazzo, through-colour HDF, HPL, calcium sulphate panels and felt. Storgata, the principal public thoroughfare, was redefined as a primarily pedestrian street through the laying of a new granite surface. The buildings and the landscape have been designed to comply with current standards for universal design.

The vision for the Grorud valley rehabilitation has been to reinforce blue-green structures by reopening the Alna watercourse. An open watercourse contributes to the self-cleansing ability of the streams, preserves ecological diversity and offers recreational possibilities. The Leirfossen waterfall was reopened in 2011 after having been closed for 40 years, and has become an attraction with its 15-metre drop.
The new Grorud park is designed with structures made with robust, durable materials. All the woodwork has been treated in order to reduce the environmental impact. Local granite has been used, and sustainable material use and local processing of materials have been a priority.
The lighting scheme is designed to protect the nocturnal wildlife and the biodiversity of the area.

Ode to Osakatag:www.architecturenorway.no,2015:/projects/culture/osaka-2015/2017-01-11T03:27:56+11:00

Architect Sverre Fehn’s competition entry for the Scandinavian pavilion at the World Fair in Osaka 1970 is now in the collection of the Norwegian National Museum – Architecture. As part of a strategy for activating its collection, the museum commissioned architects Manthey Kula to develop a concept for some kind of realization of Sverre Fehn’s competition entry.
The installation now on show is a contemporary installation based on and honoring Fehn’s idea of a breathing space. The structure consists of a timber airlock and an inflated, moving textile structure.

The city of Porsgrunn has a long maritime history. The new museum aims to reflect the city’s historical context and picturesque surroundings, while also creating a characteristically modern public building that is also to house the area’s new science centre. To adapt to the surrounding buildings, the museum’s roof is a dynamic figure combining several slanting volumes. The aluminium façade consists of small sheets, imitating the scales of the maritime fauna.

The new Havstein cemetery is located by Havstein church on Byåsen hill in Trondheim. It encircles one of the largest German war cemeteries in Norway, where 2300 German soldiers who fell in the Second World War are buried. Havstein church from 1857 is also an important historical landmark. The new cemetery is designed to enhance this historical landscape, rather than compete with it. The area is also used for recreational activities, and the footpaths have been updated to meet current standards for universal access. The area was formerly a cornfield, and this has influenced the planning of the terrain and the plant selection. The new cemetery can fit 2250 casket graves and 3350 urn graves. Havstein also includes an area for Muslim graves, oriented towards Mecca.